If you're a web developer or learning web programming languages, you must found that: every time want to perform local debugging, testing for your web app/code on a new OS or another PC, you has to set up and configure the whole AMP (Apache, PHP, MySQL) web development environments from scratch, which is absolutely boring.

USBWebserver is a super fast, convenient and portable WAMP website testing environment from Netherlands. You can run it anywhere with Windows, such as local disk, USB Flash disk, mobile HD..., or even web disk supporting synchronization like Dropbox. It integrates the Apache HTTP Server (httpd), PHP, MySQL and phpMyAdmin components in one, supports a wide variety of popular PHP/MySQL-based web applications.

As to the unofficial edition, it's made and maintained by some guy from Russia who very likes USBWebServer and very often uses it for development. But because its author have stopped update it. He finally decided to make this update by himself and tried to connect to the author and send updated versions to him, but has no luck. So he decided to put his updated versions on his own site for share.

Some Comparison

Software Bundle Contains
XAMPP = Apache + MySQL + PHP + Perl (free, big, slow and install first everywhere)
AMPPS = Apache + MySQL + PHP + Perl + Python + Softaculous (commercial, much bigger, slow and install first everywhere)
USBWebserver = Apache + MySQL + PHP + PHPMyAdmin (free, lightweight, fast and portable anytime, anywhere)
Overall, USBWebserver's UI is extremely clear and intuitive, without any complicated or superfluous stuff. So that even novices can get started with ease in no time. With USBWebserver, you can run, debug website code anytime and anywhere, test all kinds of web applications, learn web programming, or write and test your PHP code everywhere, and so on.

What has to be mentioned is after you close/exit USBWebserver, "Apache" and "MySQL" service processes will be automatically closed too (and will not start automatically on Windows startup). In that case, they do not take up any system resource in the background any more, and we don't have to manually stop them every time, so convenient.

In short, if you want to set up a complete set of PHP-based local server environments in any moment on a PC, just run USBWebserver directly and that is all. No installation, no configuration, no automatic loading background services....

Server Environments

Software Version
Official Edition
PHP 5.4.17
Apache HTTP Server (httpd) 2.4.6
phpMyAdmin 4.0.4.2
MySQL 5.6.13
Unofficial Edition
PHP 5.6.32~8.1.7
Apache HTTP Server (httpd) 2.4.54
phpMyAdmin 5.2.0
MySQL 5.7.37

Use Cases

  • Set up offline or carry-on websites
  • Anytime, anywhere develop and debug your PHP website/code
  • Save money for renting expensive server hosting
  • Continue to develop your website project at multiple PCs or locations through the network disk synchronization
  • A good test before putting your website online
  • Store and manage your data in the form of local server
  • And many more

System Requirements

  • Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable Packages (x86)

Prompts

  • You need to put your files in the root directory. You can reach the website by http://localhost:8080/
  • You don't need to chmod files with USBWebserver
  • All the settings files a placed in the settings directory. You need to restart USBWebserver after changing the settings
  • The settings for PhpMyAdmin: Username is 'root' and the password 'usbw'
  • Note that, the file path should not contain special characters (it is best to use English characters), otherwise the Apache server may fail to start, or encounter all kinds of strange problems
  • Under normal circumstances, the Apache or MySQL service starts displaying as green check mark, if appears red, most often that means its default port is occupied. Just change another port in the Settings
  • Apache/MySQL/PHP configuration files are all located in the software's "settings" folder

Found Bugs

If you see the error like the followings when opening the homepage on localhost:

This site can't be reached

localhost refused to connect.

Try:

ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED

This page can‘t be displayed

  • Make sure the web address https://localhost is correct.
  • Look for the page with your search engine.
  • Refresh the page in a few minutes.

This webpage is not available
The solution is just use "http" instead of "https" as the prefix, e.g.:

    localhost/public_html/ -> http:

*** If your site is using .htaccess file to forcibly shift from http to https, then you need to delete the corresponding rule or the entire file.

Prompts

  • The Official/Unofficial Edition may have a bug (Apache service does not start), but the Unofficial Edition with WebsiteBaker works well. The solution is reinstall/repair "Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable Packages (x86)".
  • Default login info: root; usbw
  • If you chanced the "Root dir" option a custom path in "Settings", then you have to make sure the full path exists. Otherwise, USBWebserver can not start up the Apache service. Of course, you can also change this option to its default value "{path}/root".

Related Links

Download URLs

Version PHP Version Download Size
Official Edition
v8.6 Final v5.4.17 22.6 MB
Unofficial Edition (GitHub)
v8.6.1 v5.6.32 27.6 MB
v8.6.3 v7.4 63.1 MB
v8.6.5 v8.1 62.9 MB
Unofficial Edition with WebsiteBaker
v8.6.5 v7.4.3 67.3 MB
Unofficial Edition (by tcpoverhttp)
v8.6.6 v8.0.7 n/a
v10.0.0 v8.1.7 n/a
*** In v10.0.0, Apache HTTP Server gives the following error:
  • Apache HTTP Server has stopped working
(Homepage)