Apache, MySQL, PHP and Perl Preconfigured Install Out Of The Box
Setting up Apache, MySQL, PHP and Perl is not an easy task for those who have never done it before. This is a common, cheap (free) and efficient development environments for many reasons.
LAMP is term for such a cheap and powerful development environment. Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP. It is also possible to set these up on a Windows environment quite easily too.
XAMPP is a distribution made for Linux, Windows, MacOs and Solaris by the Apache Friends. The install provides you with a preconfigured Apache, MySQL, PHP and Perl environment after an easy install process. The package is free to download and use.
A package like XAMPP is great for people who want to develop and test their websites on their local machine before deploying such to their production environment. Testing is always a good idea, particularly for a website with a lot of visitors.
There are other similar packages available such as: