XAMPP is a free software package that lets you run a web server on your own computer, useful for building and testing WordPress sites locally before putting them online.
The name is an acronym describing what it bundles together: Cross-platform, Apache, MySQL (or MariaDB), PHP, and Perl — everything WordPress needs to run, packaged into one simple installer.
Why People Use It
Setting up a web server, database, and PHP manually can be a fiddly, technical process. XAMPP handles all of that setup automatically, letting developers get a local WordPress environment running quickly without configuring each piece separately.
Newer Alternatives
While XAMPP is still around and widely used, newer tools built specifically for WordPress have emerged, offering a more streamlined experience tailored just for WordPress development rather than general-purpose local server hosting.