EasyPHP is a great little web server package, as you might expect, it has the usual LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) stack, with phpMyAdmin, and a few other things. The only issue you might have with the EasyPHP 1.8 release is that it uses PHP 4. This may not be a problem unless you really need some of those sweet new features from PHP5. No word yet on when the folks at EasyPHP will be including PHP5, but we hope it will be soon. The more web development you do in PHP, you start to want those new features more and more. If you need a PHP4 based web server for testing or other purposes, EasyPHP is great.

If you just can't get enough of that PHP5 goodness though, you're out of luck, especially for someone who doesn't want to go inserting PHP5 into EasyPHP and bringing the whole shebang down on their heads. There is a web server solution that includes PHP5 in a slim package that is seamless and you could almost say exciting. WAMP5 installs quick and does a kill job of it. It more accurately reflects the fact that this is Windows not Linux we're using, thus the WAMP name. A great part of WAMP is the built in service support and simplified administration panel.

The downside to WAMP is that it is only a desktop installed application, not playing nice with your portable web-serving needs. While not a real drawback, it can be useful to have a portable web server running on a stick for a web developer on the go. EasyPHP does work well on a portable drive, so long as you can live without PHP5 for a bit. For most things either web server package will work just fine. They both are small downloads, easy to install and run without a hitch, and make your life easier. Both packages are also free, which helps with sticker shock.

Remember the days when you had to change each file one by one on FTP and re-upload? Yeah, those days are over.