WordPress announced the release of Studio by WordPress, a new local development tool that makes it easy for publishers to not only develop and update websites locally on their PC or laptop, but is also useful for learning how to use WordPress. Learn about Studio and other platforms that make it easy to develop websites with WordPress right on your desktop.
Local development environments
Local environments are like web hosting spaces on your desktop that can be used to set up a WordPress site. They’re a great way to try out new WordPress themes and plugins to learn how they work without breaking a live website or posting something on the web that Google might accidentally index. They are also useful for testing whether an updated plugin causes a conflict with other plugins on a website, which is useful for testing updated plugins offline before committing to updating plugins on a live website.
Studio joins a list of popular local development environments specific to WordPress and more advanced platforms that can be used for WordPress on the desktop, but have greater flexibility and options, but can be more difficult to use for non-developers.
Desktop WordPress development environments
There are currently a few local environments specific to WordPress. The benefits of using a dedicated WordPress environment is that they make it easy to start building with WordPress for those who only need to work with WordPress sites and nothing more complicated than that.
WordPress.com studio
Studio is an open source project that allows developers and publishers to set up a WordPress site on their desktop to design, test, or learn how to use WordPress.
According to WordPress announcement:
“Say goodbye to manual tool setup, slow site setup, and clunky local development workflows, and say hello to Studio by WordPress.com, our new free and open source local WordPress development environment .
Once you have a local site up and running, you can access WP Admin, the global Site Editor, Styles and Patterns, all with one click and no need to remember and enter a username or password.
Studio aims to be a simple and fast way to create WordPress sites on the desktop. It’s currently available for use on a Mac, with a Windows version coming soon.
Download the Mac version here.
Other popular local WordPress development environments
DevKinsta
DevKinsta, developed by managed web host Kinsta, is another development environment that is specifically dedicated to rapidly designing and testing WordPress sites on the desktop. It is a popular option that many developers endorse.
This makes it a great tool for publishers, SEOs, and developers who just want one tool to do one thing, build WordPress sites. This makes DevKinsta a solid consideration for anyone who is serious about WordPress site development or just wants to learn how to use WordPress, especially the latest Gutenberg Blocks environment.
Download DevKinsta for free here.
local WP
Local WP is a popular desktop development environment built specifically for WordPress users by WP Engine, a managed WordPress hosting provider.
Useful features of Local WP
Local WP has multiple features that make it useful beyond simple WordPress website development and testing.
Image optimizer
It has a free image optimization plugin that optimizes images on the desktop, which should be popular for those who can’t optimize images on their own.
Upload backups
Another useful feature is the ability to upload backups to Dropbox and Google Drive.
Link checker
The tool has a built-in link checker that scans your local version of the website for broken links. This is a great way to check a site offline without using server resources and potentially slowing down your live site.
Import and export sites
This has the very handy ability to import files from your WordPress website and export them so you can work on your current WordPress site on the desktop, try out new plugins or themes, and if you’re ready, upload the files to your web site
Advanced local development environments
There are other local development environments that are not specific to WordPress, but are useful for designing and testing WordPress sites on the desktop. These tools are more advanced and popular with developers who appreciate the freedom and options available on these platforms.
DDEV with Docker
An open source application that makes it easy to use Docker software containerization to quickly get a content management system up and running, without having to deal with the Docker learning curve.
Download DDEV with Docker here.
Laragon
Laragon is a free local development environment that was recommended to me by someone who is an advanced programmer because he told me that it is easy to use and quite intuitive. They were right. I have used it and had good experiences with it. It’s not a WordPress-specific tool, so be aware of that.
Laragon is described as an easy-to-use alternative to XXAMPP and WAMP.
Mamp
Mamp is a local development platform that is popular among advanced programmers and is available for Mac and Windows.
David McCann (Facebook profile), a WordPress trainer who writes about advanced WordPress topics on WebTNG shared his experience with MAMP.
“MAMP is fairly easy to set up and offers a full range of features. I currently have 51 local sites that are development versions of my production sites, which I use to test plugins and which I periodically use for new beta versions of the core WordPress. It’s also easy to clone sites. I haven’t noticed any slowdowns or lags.”
WAMP and XAMPP
WAMP is a Windows-only development environment that is popular with WordPress theme and plugin developers and publishers.
XAMPP is a PHP development platform that can be used on Linux, Mac and Windows desktops.
So many Local Development Platforms
Studio by WordPress.com is an exciting new local development platform and I’m looking forward to trying it out. But it’s not the only one, so it can be helpful to try different solutions to see which one works best for you.
Learn more about Studio by WordPress:
Meet WordPress.com Studio – a fast and free way to develop locally with WordPress
Featured image by Shutterstock/Wpadington
