Building WordPress themes and plugins locally is a huge time saver. Creating a local development environment is nothing complicated. As you probably already know, it is simply a web server running on your computer, as opposed to a remote one, which is usually a hosting plan you purchased.
Coding WordPress themes and plugins entails a lot of back and forth testing, as well as browser refreshing. Since there are no latency issues to deal with on a local server environment, you work through this process a lot faster than on a live server, where you have to wait for your network connection.
Moreover by developing on a local server, you give yourself ample room for mistakes. That is, you can make as many mistakes as possible and cause no harm whatsoever. This is different with a live environment since it typically hosts other websites and some mistakes may be unforgiving – especially those that may affect the security of the live server.
Furthermore, if you want to test out any themes or plugins, before adding them to your live website, having a local installation of WordPress to experiment on has its obvious benefits.
If you like the sound of setting up your own local server environment to install WordPress on your computer, then this article will highlight some of the best options. You will also find a walk through guide to setting this up with my service of choice.
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