Aral Balkan

On Windows, I use the excellent Wamp to set up a local development environment with Apache, MySQL and PHP. On the Mac, I just discovered MAMP which lets me do the same thing.

Although OS X comes with Apache and PHP you have to turn PHP on manually and install MySQL whereas MAMP handles all that for you. (Installing it is as easy as installing any other OS X application, just drag it to your Applications folder.) Furthermore, MAMP creates a self-contained installation that doesn't alter any other settings on your computer. You can simply trash the folder if you want to uninstall it.

Comments

• Yes, it's pretty sweet. I had been using the server logistics apps until I transitioned to MAMP. I wonder if the final version of leopard will have some sort of admin console for the preinstalled apache server.

  by Scott Janousek on 2006-08-20 14:53:47

• I'm sure you were singing the praises of XAMPP a while back, why don't you just use the OSX version here: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-macosx.html

  by Jolyon on 2006-08-21 08:43:30

• Ah lovely, i hadnt thought to look for a MAC version. Heres one back for you, lovely way to enable postfix from the command line, sudo postfix start badabing

  by Pete on 2006-08-21 11:42:06

• sank you! Just last week I was beginning to look into LAMP's, and how to setup some sort of local database madness. Yes, I'm n00b. thanks!

  by LEE on 2006-08-21 12:30:52

• Do you know if you need IIS to run WAMP?

  by John Giotta on 2006-08-22 19:48:09

• Nope, no IIS needed (is there IIS for OS X?) It installs Apache.

  by aral on 2006-08-24 00:43:42

• Jolyron: I discovered Wamp after XAMPP. I actually find it easier to work with.

  by aral on 2006-08-24 00:47:53

• Thats like saying do you need a Ford to drive a Chevy. WAMP, is Windows, Apache, Mysql, and PHP; IIS is Microsoft's Database package. They compete with each other.

  by mg on 2006-12-04 20:24:42

• Thank you for this, do i need to uninstall all previous versions of mysql, xampp and other packages i have installed... it seems a mess down there... Could you write a tut on how to get the leopard back to a fresh start with apache, mysql and php please :-)

  by ll on 2008-01-23 13:09:37

• Brady- Did you figure it out? I used to have no problem with MAMP, but now same issues as you are seeing.....

  by Chris on 2008-10-17 09:28:45

• @ll: You're welcome! Unfortunately, I really only use MAMP and haven't messed with the built-in servers, etc. And I actually downgraded to Tiger and I'm waiting for 10.5.2 at least before I give Leopard another chance.

  by Aral on 2008-01-23 18:08:47

• I Have MAMP installed, once up i hit open start page. It opens safari "Safari can’t open the page “http://localhost:8888/MAMP/?language=English” because it can’t find the server “localhost”. as well as Safari can’t open the page “http://localhost:8888/MAMP/joomla_1” because it can’t find the server “localhost”. http://localhost/ only gives me APACHE-- I'm trying to load joomla to test. Can you help get this thing going thaks

  by Brady on 2008-07-13 00:29:44

• Brady and Chris (and anyone else who's interested), Like Chris, I had been using MAMP with no problems, in my case for several months. Today, though, I encountered the same problem Brady described. I recently upgraded from OX 10.4 to OS 10.5.5, which I suppose could have something to do with it, but I've done other things too, like installing drivers for a wifi printer yesterday, etc. So I don't know what might have changed in the interim to cause the problem. However, I seem to have solved the problem by doing the following things. I don't know if all of them are necessary, but now my MAMP is working again. 1. In Mac's system preferences -> security -> firewall, I added MAMP to the list of applications to "Allow incoming connections" 2. The foregoing step didn't get MAMP working by itself. So, next, in MAMP, I went to preferences -> ports, where I changed the Apache port from 8888 to 80. That still didn't get MAMP working, but, I was no longer getting the error message Brady described (i.e., that Safari couldn't fine the server "localhost"). Instead I got a message to the effect that Safari couldn't find the file "MAMP," which I suppose was progress because it looked like Safari was at least finding the server. 3. Next, I went back to MAMP -> preferences -> ports, and changed the Apache port back to 8888. Then, voila, MAMP started working fine, and has been working fine for the rest of today. I don't know what went wrong initially or why the foregoing steps fixed the problem. I suspect all of the foregoing steps weren't necessary. Perhaps it would have been sufficient simply to go to MAMP's preferences -> ports and reset the Apache port from 8888 back to 8888. -Matt

  by Matt on 2008-12-25 21:33:11

• Matt, thank you for this. My MAMP installation just started giving me exactly the same error message. For me, simply changing the web server port to something else got it working again.

  by André on 2008-12-26 20:33:33

• [...] Start all services or Restart all services).UPDATE 2: For all those who are using a Mac, read this post, and try MAMP instead of [...]

  by My Habari :: Some tips on working with a self-hosted Wordpress blog on 2009-01-26 21:19:10

• I had the same problem and followed Matts steps but these did not fix my problem. However they did steer me in the right direction. I finally solved the problem by setting my ports to default mysql and apache then accessing through http://localhost/ . as http://localhost:8888/MAMP/htdocs?language=English would just not work even when port number was replaced

  by Neil on 2009-07-09 17:54:13

• I been using mamp for a few months now, as I need a local testing environment, and I cannot for the life of me ssh into localhost/MAMP. ssh root@localhost (while mamp is running) will continue to ask for password over and over. I even created new user, nothing still same issue. I have posted help to mamp forums, they seem rather dead, maybe someone here can help? thanks

  by billy on 2009-07-09 18:42:34

• Hi I am having the above problem also, however I can access my local site via Firefox, but not Explorer or Safari. When I try Safari or Explorer, I get the php script rather than the active pages. I have tried the above troubleshooting suggestions but nothing works. Any suggestions as to how I can get Explorer and Safari to interact with Mamp? thanks

  by Mel on 2009-08-24 03:56:46