{"id":2778,"date":"2020-03-06T14:20:42","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T14:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goodcore.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2778"},"modified":"2025-02-23T17:15:02","modified_gmt":"2025-02-23T17:15:02","slug":"xampp-vs-wamp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodcore.co.uk\/blog\/xampp-vs-wamp\/","title":{"rendered":"Difference between XAMPP and WAMP: Which Local Development Server Is Better?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back when I enrolled in an introductory <\/span>web app development<\/span><\/a> elective my college was offering, I had the misfortune of being stuck with an over-qualified professor with terrible communication skills. Over the course of the semester, every single student \u2013 including me \u2013 struggled to make sense of the plethora of new \u201cweb dev\u201d jargon that they were bombarded with. One day, we were suddenly asked to \u201cmake a web app software\u201d of our own, which is when I was first introduced to the <\/span>XAMPP vs WAMP debate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether you are a student or an amateur developer who hasn\u2019t worked on any major projects yet, this article will help you make sense of what <\/span>XAMPP and WAMP<\/span> are and how they are used in the web development process.<\/span><\/p>\n

So let\u2019s begin!<\/span><\/p>\n

(Note:<\/span> Throughout the article, any mention of WAMP refers not to the server stack but to one of the <\/span><\/i>best WAMP server<\/span><\/i>s, WampServer, which is more commonly known as WAMP. Hence, this article is a <\/span><\/i>WampServer vs XAMPP<\/span><\/i> comparison.)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Introducing Local Development Servers<\/span><\/h2>\n

Before we dive into the specifics of <\/span>XAMPP vs WAMP<\/span>, we need to answer a much more important question: What is a local development server?<\/span><\/p>\n

In order to understand that, we must know how websites work and what happens in the background when we visit a website.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are two parts of a website, the <\/span>frontend (what the client sees) and the backend (what the server handles). A client is any device trying to access a website. But when a client sends a request to view a website, where does that request go? The server! You can think of the server as a warehouse in a far-off location where the website along with all of its resources is safely stored.<\/span><\/p>\n

We now know that it is important to have some kind of accessible storage space where you can host your website, for which you need to rent a space for website hosting. However, renting this space costs money (there are different <\/span>types of payment plans<\/span> depending on various factors). Plus, once the site goes onto the main server, it usually becomes accessible to the general public. There may be security issues, bugs, or a bunch of other problems. Thus, whether you are developing a website for a college project or for a client, it does not make sense to spend that kind of money for going live with a website that is under construction, is incomplete, or has not been tested for vulnerabilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

A local development server solves this problem. A local server runs on the same machine that the developer is using to create and access the website. Thus, it allows said machine to act as both client and server. You do not even have to be connected to the Internet in order to run the website.<\/span><\/p>\n

XAMPP and WAMP<\/span> are types of local development servers, which are a crucial type of web development technology<\/span><\/a>. They recreate the environment of an actual web server so that you can run your website code, test it thoroughly, and then move onto the deployment stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before we move onto the comparison of <\/span>XAMPP vs WAMP<\/span>, we will discuss each of these software products individually by answering the following questions.<\/span>
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