XAMPP is a free, open-source, cross-platform web server solution stack
XAMPP is a free, open-source, cross-platform web server solution stack. It is primarily used by developers to create a local web server on their own computers for testing and development purposes before deploying projects to a live production server.
Instead of downloading, installing, and configuring a web server, a database, and a programming language separately, XAMPP packages them all into a single, easy-to-install bundle.
The name is an acronym where each letter represents a core component:
X: Cross-platform (runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS)
A: Apache (the HTTP web server)
M: MariaDB (the database management system; it replaced MySQL in newer versions)
P: PHP (the server-side scripting language)
P: Perl (another scripting language, though less commonly used today)
It also typically includes utilities like phpMyAdmin (a graphical interface to manage your databases) and FileZilla (an FTP server).
What is the Basis of XAMPP Version 7?
The version numbering system of XAMPP is directly tied to the version of PHP it includes. Therefore, the basis of XAMPP version 7 is PHP 7.
When the PHP development team released the major upgrade from PHP 5 to PHP 7 (skipping version 6 entirely), the creators of XAMPP (Apache Friends) shifted their versioning strategy to match PHP. This made it immediately clear to developers which environment they were spinning up.
