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Powerful and Easy-to-Use PHP Integrated Development Environment: Laragon

laragonphp development environmentwindows local serverphpmyadmin setupmultiple php versions
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Laragon is an integrated development environment that includes Apache, PHP, MySQL, Nginx, and various other environments, eliminating the hassle of manual configuration. It can completely replace XAMPP (the environment previously used by xiaoz for local development).

Installing Laragon

Laragon supports only the Windows system. You can download the latest version from the official website: https://laragon.org/download/. It is recommended to download the Laragon - Lite version.

  1. Select English during the installation interface; do not choose Chinese, as the interface may display garbled text (tested on Windows 10).
  2. After installation, you can set the interface to Chinese (as shown below).

Removing Unnecessary Software

The Laragon - Lite version integrates many third-party tools, such as Notepad++ and Cmder. If you do not need these tools, you can simply delete the corresponding folders in the bin directory.

Installing phpMyAdmin

Laragon does not include phpMyAdmin by default. If you prefer using phpMyAdmin, you can:

  1. Download the latest phpMyAdmin program from the official website: https://www.phpmyadmin.net/.
  2. Extract it to the laragon\etc\apps\phpMyAdmin directory.
  3. Finally, access localhost/phpMyAdmin in your browser to open it.

Adding Additional PHP Versions

Laragon includes only one PHP version by default. If you need support for multiple PHP versions:

  1. Download the required PHP version from the PHP official website.
  2. Extract it to the laragon\bin\php directory.
  3. Finally, switch to the desired PHP version in the Laragon - PHP options.

Laragon Packaging

Laragon does not use Windows services; instead, it features its own service orchestration with asynchronous and non-blocking management. Therefore, you can compress and package the Laragon directory, then extract it to another computer to use it immediately. It is that convenient.

Summary

If you are a PHP developer, Laragon is highly recommended. Whether for development or production environments on the Windows system, Laragon is very suitable and eliminates the trouble of manual configuration.

Laragon Official Website: https://laragon.org/