Difference Between XAMPP and WAMP

The article talks about XAMPP and WAMP servers, their pros and cons, and discusses the difference between XAMPP and WAMP.

When a server is hosted locally on your computer, it is called a local server. These local servers help developers test a website several times before making it available online.

XAMPP and WAMP are local servers. Both stacks are highly beneficial for smoothly operating and evaluating websites and web applications locally on an end-user desktop or laptop. However, they both consist of a similar type of software required to run a web server, but they also have some differences based on their functionalities, let’s read on.

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What is XAMPP?

XAMPP full form is X-operating system, Apache, Mysql, Php, Perl. One of the main features of XAMPP is that it is the simplest and lightest local server.

XAMPP is an open-source platform. It works on all major operating systems like Windows, Mac, Linux, etc. Being an open-source platform, you can easily download and install it on your system.

Other exciting features include Filezilla, Mercury Mail, Perl support, etc. If you need advanced features on the local server, XAMPP is a comprehensive option.

Also, experienced developers can work in multiple languages ​​with XAMPP.

Below we have listed some of the pros and cons of XAMPP.

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Advantages of XAMPP

• It is easy to set up and use.
• XAMPP is a free and open-source cross-platform web server solution stack package for all types of operating systems like Linux and Windows.
• It has many other essential modules like phpMyAdmin, OpenSSL, MediaWiki, WordPress, Joomla, and more.
• XAMPP comes in both a standard version (smaller version) and a full version.
• It allows the users to start and end the entire web server + database stack with just one command.

Disadvantages of XAMPP

• Configuration and settings in XAMPP are complex compared to WAMP.

What is WAMP?

WAMP server stands for Windows, Apache, Mysql, and PHP. Like XAMPP, it is also an open-source platform. It uses an Apache web server, MySQL relational database management system, and PHP language.

WAMP allows you to test dynamic websites on the local server without activating them. It is easy to use and available for 32-bit and 64-bit systems.

If you only work with native web applications, WAMP is the ideal choice. Listed below are some of the pros and cons of WAMP.

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Advantages of WAMP 

• Changing settings is easy in WAMP.
• It facilitates PHP coding and database creation on the Windows platform.
• It is available for 64 and 32-bit systems.

Disadvantages of WAMP 

• It is not as easy to install as XAMPP.

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Similarities Between XAMPP and WAMP

XAMPP and WAMP are free and open-source web server packages for running a web server on a PC. Both contain an Apache, PHP server, and other software necessary to run a website/web application.

The primary benefit of both is that you don’t have to download Apache, PHP, MySQL individually, etc., for a web server to work on the computer. All you need to do is to download their installers from their respective websites and then install XAMPP and WAMP on the computer.

You can use one of these web server packages to test PHP-based CMS, blogs, and applications on your PC by downloading Joomla, Drupal, or WordPress.

Differences between XAMPP and WAMP

Below are some important differences between XAMPP and WAMP, based on different criteria.

User interface

Since both XAMPP and WampServer are made up of numerous virtual products, e.g., Apache, PHP, MySql, MariaDB, etc., they come with a primary and easy-to-use dashboard. The control board is a graphical user interface that allows you to enable or disable individual segment programming projects in XAMPP or Wamp while they are running.

XAMPP

It has a control panel; you can see that it has a start and stop buttons for individual mechanisms, for example, Apache, while running its Control Panel.

WAMP 

The WAMP Server has a GUI that helps individual component software turn on or off when WampServer is running.

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Facility

You can easily install XAMPP and WampServer on your system. Download and install its installer if you are using a Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, or Linux or Mac OS X computer. 

Using a desktop or Windows laptop, you can download and install WampServer like you install other apps. WampServer is challenging to install compared to Xampp. You may have different problems, including “vc++ distribution windows file is missing.” You can resolve this error and install Wampserver with WordPress CMS successfully with the help of the video below:

Performance

The core internal component software in XAMPP and WampServer are PHP, Apache, and MariaDB or MySQL, which are needed to run a web server locally. So, whether you are using XAMPP or WampServer for similar work that needs similar component software, the performance of XAMPP or WampServer should be almost the same.
We hope this article helped you to understand the difference between XAMPP and WAMP.