Working on your own machine.
THE OPTIONS
A packaged stack such as XAMPP, MAMP or Laragon, which installs web server, PHP and database together Docker, which gives reproducible environments matching production A dedicated tool for your platform, such as Local for WordPress A virtual machine
CHOOSING
If you are starting out, a packaged stack is simplest. If you work in a team, Docker gives everyone the same environment. If you work on one platform, a dedicated tool for it is usually the smoothest.
MATCHING PRODUCTION
The PHP version, extensions and database version should match your hosting. Differences produce bugs locally that do not exist in production, and worse, bugs in production that you cannot reproduce.
Check your hosting's PHP version and configure locally to match.
WHAT TO KEEP LOCAL
Debug mode on Mail sent to a local catcher rather than real addresses Test API keys, never live ones
WHY IT MATTERS
Developing directly on a live site guarantees that visitors see broken states. A local environment costs an hour to set up and prevents that permanently.
