Open Server - a professional Windows web developer tool.

I want to introduce you to a new professional tool for web development for Windows.

Open Server is a portable local WAMP / WNMP server with a multi-functional control program and a large selection of connected components. The presented software package is not just an amateur build assembled “on the knee”, it is the first full-fledged professional tool designed specifically for web developers, taking into account their recommendations and suggestions.

If you are still using Denwer, Xampp, Vertrigo, etc. or prefer to install all server components separately - welcome under cat.


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Components and tools

For debugging scripts in different environments, the Open Server offers a choice of two types of HTTP servers, different versions of PHP and DBMS modules, as well as the ability to quickly switch between them.

HTTP modules: Apache 2.2.21 and Nginx 1.0.11;

DBMS modules: MySQL 5.1.61, MySQL 5.5.20 and PostgreSQL 9.1.1;

PHP modules: PHP 5.2.17 (IMagick 2.2.1, Zend Optimizer 3.3.3, IonCube Loader 4.0.7, Memcache 2.2.4) and PHP 5.3.9 (IMagick 2.3.0, Xdebug 2.1.3, IonCube Loader 4.0. 10, Memcache 2.2.6);

Excellent toolkit: HeidiSQL, Adminer, PHPMyAdmin, PHPPgAdmin, PgAdmin.
The package also includes such goodies as: Perl, FTP server, Sendmail, Memcached server!

Open Server is the only project I know that includes Nginx! And here a convenient connection of rewrite rules is implemented through .nxaccess files in the domain root, and PHP works in the True FastCGI mode (not killed).

All components are taken from the official repositories and are always updated to the latest versions with each update package.

Opportunities

First of all, I want to note that the Open Server is a fully portable server. No system services, heaps of garbage in the registry and system32. Everywhere you can carry it with you on a flash drive (preferably at high speed), run it on a work / home machine without fear that something will not work for you.
If the required system components are missing on the computer, Open Server will install them itself; it is enough to select from the [Tools - First Start] menu if the server is started on the computer for the first time.

I do not want to describe the main features of the program, since most of them are standard for this kind of software. By itself that by means of Open Server it is possible to start / stop the server or open the required domain. It will be much more interesting for you to learn about the specific "features" that make the Open Server special, really special:

- A detailed view of the logs of all components in real time;
- choice of HTTP, DBMS and PHP modules in any combination;
- support for SSL and Cyrillic domains out of the box;
- support for aliases or domain indexes in a different way, as well as a convenient form for setting them up (hello to multisiting fans in Drupal!);
- creation of a local subdomain without loss of visibility of the main domain on the Internet
- access to domains (one click) and quick access to the module configuration templates;
- multilingual interface (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, English);

The program is constantly being improved, all adequate requests from users of Open Server are studied in detail and most of them are implemented!

A bit of history

Initially, I was developing a control program in the DevelStudio environment. I think there will be those who read my article about this development environment. Since then, much water has flowed under the bridge, I realized that work on this project is extremely sluggish, there were no prospects in terms of the development of Open Server functionality. I rewrote the program from scratch and starting from version 4.0 and further development is carried out in the Delphi language.

Conclusion

For many years in my daily work I used Denwer, after some time I switched to Vertrigo. I tried almost all the other options available: XAMPP, AppServ, WAMPserver, TopServer, etc., but none of the above assemblies satisfied me. The limited functionality, the difficulty of setting up, and sometimes even the simple external ugliness fought off my every desire to use these "creations".

Now, I can recommend Open Server to all web developers, even conservatives, who are used to installing everything manually and in no other way.

Homepage: http://open-server.ru

Dear Habravchane, I will be glad to see you on the Open Server forum, I will listen with interest to your proposals for the development of the project, suggestions for connecting new components and other interesting ideas.