Installing PHP, APACHE, MYSQL/MARIADB Seperately on Windows 10 or 11

When you install each service separately like this they are much faster and stable compare to all the other bundled solutions out there. YES ALL!

Why not use docker ? This clean setup works even faster than Docker or VM workflows. Works great with Tool Calling AI Agents as well.

Repeater after me: NATIVE ALWAYS BETTER.

Install PHP Win

Download the PHP x64 Thread Safe tar.gz export it to C: or D: inside folder \php

Windows + Pause shortcut open the System Properties > Advanced System Settings > Environment Variables > System Variables Click Path and Click Edit and Add the location C:\php to the path list.

These days php makes the .ini files as php.ini-production rename this to php.ini and enable some of the php extensions they are all disabled as default. These are usualy are enough for most of the php projects; curl , fileinfo , gd , mbstring , exif , mysqli , openssl , pdo_mysql , zip.

Install Apache Win

Put this on C: or D: inside folder \Apache24 Folder. Apache can be run just from httpd.exe or can be added as service to the win. But making it as a service only needed if you want it to auto start every time win starts.

Open the \Apache24\conf\httpd.conf add these configuration after the #LoadModule lines.

# PHP 8 Configuration
LoadFile "C:/php/php8ts.dll"
LoadModule php_module "C:/php/php8apache2_4.dll"
PHPIniDir "C:/php"
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

Install MariaDB Server Win

Select MariaDB Server > Windows > MSI Package > Download and just run the setup thats it MariaDB should install itself as a Win Service.

As alternative ofcourse mysql win can be installed instead of mariadb and configured. But mysql setup and configurations takes a bit longer than the mariadb. You do whatever you like 🙂

After WAMP is done you can install phpMyAdmin and/or HeidiSQL or MySQL Workbench or SQLYog Community.

All of them are great. For me I use HeidiSQL but on linux phpMyAdmin is ofcourse the best. 🤍

Have fun developing out there 🙂