WordPress Local Development Environments Made Easy

Developing WordPress sites within a local environment offers many benefits:

No latency – since the site runs locally, there’s no waiting for an external server to respond
Free – don’t pay for hosting a site that is not ready for primetime
Convenience – depending on what tools you use, you may be able to sync/push your sites to your hosting provider
Security – no need to worry about the site getting hacked, focus on development

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Local

Local has been an option for WordPress developers for a very long time. The tool used to sport the name Local by Flywheel, until WP Engine purchased the company in 2019.

The tool boasts tons of features, including Cloud Backups, SSH/WP-CLI access, environment switching, the choice between Apache or nginx and modifies server config (Docker), HTTPS connection with ngrok, headless WP, clone, import/export as well as Mailhog for simulating local email.

The app does allow you to push to Flywheel staging, production, and deployment to WP Engine. You do not need to be a customer of either company to use it, you’ll just need to use a different means to deploy — migration plugins like Duplicator, Migrate Guru, and of course a Git workflow would be fine.

Visit Local to download

DevKinsta

The new kid on the block — as Kinsta continues to rise up the ranks of Managed WordPress hosting, they continue to deliver new features and tools.

Like Local, customers of the hosting company would likely get the most benefit, though that doesn’t mean you have to be a Kinsta customer to use the tool, you just won’t have sync/push options.

While not boasting the likes of Local, DevKinsta does hit the spot when it comes to needed features. Docker is utilized which means the server software can be customized per needs, local database management tool, Mailhog, self-signed SSL, and push/pull features for customers. Having a macOS version with M1/M2 optimizations is a bonus.