Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

WordPress Local WordPress Development Local WordPress Development Installing a Local Web Server on a PC

Posted by Nazmul Haque Sajol
Nazmul Haque Sajol
13,594 Points

Pro/Con of using Local and Live Server for WordPress Development

Which environment is best for WordPress Development ? Is it Local Server (xampp) or Liver Hosting Server ? Can anyone explain the fact in a simple way or give blog/article reference regarding this issue ?

Note: I'm using Live Server with cloud9 (online editor) and i'm enough comfortable with that. But i need to find out if there any technical issue for Live Server. I also want to know the speed issue, is local server noticeably faster then Live Server ?

2 Answers

Brian Hayes
Brian Hayes
20,986 Points
Brian Hayes
Brian Hayes
20,986 Points

The short answer:

Local development is way faster, much easier to work with, doesn't depend on an internet connection to work, allows for a much wider range of tools that can be used for development, and is just much easier to manage and maintain.

Live server development is slower, potentially destructive to the live site, requires an internet connection, and is just limiting.

You can work much faster on local.

A longer answer:

Developing locally will almost always be the best option. Running a virtual server either with MAMP, WAMP, LAMP, Vagrant, etc... allows you to work in the correct environment while leveraging the processing power of your local machine. This means everything loads much much faster than if you had to communicate with a live server. Also you have direct access to source files so editing and project building is much much easier. For example you don't have to wait for the file to upload to the server every time you save to see the changes.

My current workflow involves running a virtual server with Vagrant & Virtual Box utilizing the VVV (Varying Vagrant Vagrants) setup. With the files on my local computer I can then easily use things like Gulp.js, Git, Sass, BrowserSync, and whatever else.

On the more advanced end, this allows me to develop a theme, for example, using Sass and a more broken out file structure for Javascript, and then once I'm ready to deploy I can use Gulp to process the scss files, concatenate the javascript, minify it all, and build out a production ready theme without all the bulk of whatever config files, and file parts that are on the development version. This way, the server gets a very clean theme, while the version I develop with stays local.

This also allows you to develop a theme, plugin, or entire site without ever compromising what's live. I would suggest a staging server, however, that has the same configuration as the live server. That way you can test everything in case there's a problem. Sometimes things only crop up when you go to a real server, so it's best to do things that way.

as an extra note: I used to use MAMP to develop with WordPress locally, but for some reason it was running fairly slow and taking seconds for page loads so I finally broke down and tried the VVV alternative instead for my workflow and have never looked back. I found it to be much faster and even less draining on resources, and the ability to create a brand new install of WordPress from the command line is a giant time saver.