I do Php and MySQL development on a small scale on my Mac. When first researching it all a few years back, I came across Marc Liyanage’s Apache build (entropy.ch). Since that’s all I knew, I installed it and have been using it ever since.
I hear a lot about XAMP and MAMP these days. Now I’m not a Linux guy really. I can get around the terminal, and use MySQL via the terminal, but I’m not too UNIX savy in general. I find that I’m stumped when I have to install packages for Apache / Php via the command line.
My question is: is the interface / installation / maintenance in XAMP / MAMP simpler or more intuitive, than the entropy.ch build? (As in, more interfaces and less UNIX code to build things)?
How about any other differences?
I can’t say I’ve ever seen or used Marc Liyanage’s Apache build, but can attest that both XAMPP and MAMP are extremely easy to install and use and neither require any command line commands to setup.
I use XAMPP daily, and tried MAMP for a while but saw nothing better or worse about it so just kept using XAMPP. If you find yourself needing to extend Apache and install additional modules then you might need the command line to do so, but I’ve never needed to.
The only frustration I’ve ever had with either is default location for site files being with the application folder. It’s not too difficult to change or work around, but it’s annoying if you’re used to having them in the sites folder.
XAMPP and MAMP are pretty well self contained and neither should affect your existing setup if oyu give them a test drive.