Local Production Environment Choices for WordPress: DesktopServer

Post Published on November 3, 2016.
Last Updated on November 3, 2016 by davemackey.

Photo of Man at Computer

DesktopServer

This product is essentially a WAMP / MAMP application that has been extended to include some additional WordPress oriented functionality.

In its free version the customizations that stood out to me are

  • its inclusion of Xdebug,
  • support for Domain Name Mapping,
  • auto-creation of Apache Virtual Hosts,
  • and its auto-install of WP.

I was surprised to note that they list PHP 5.5 as being included but no mention of PHP 7.

When one moves up to their premium product ($100) one receives

  • a trace utility for PHP debugging (which one?),
  • LAN sharing for mobile testing,
  • a few plugins (bypass login, airplane mode, enhanced Coda2 preview, Adobe Dreamweaver),
  • “blueprints for automated WordPress configurations”,
  • the ability to direct deploy to a live server,
  • and the ability to import (from BackupBuddy, Duplicator, BackWP Up, BackUp WordPress, InfiniteWP, ManageWP), export, and archive sites.

I didn’t spend a ton of time with it, as at the time I was looking for something that was virtualized – e.g., using Vagrant or Docker.

I’d want the premium version –  but $100 is quite pricey, imho, especially when much of the product consists of open source components.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand this has had some significant time and effort put into it, but I’ll blog about a few other solutions available that are free and open source and you’ll see how they can stand shoulder to shoulder with DesktopServer.

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