Recently, I was trying to very quickly hack up a website (this website actually) using PHP but was reluctant to install IIS or Apache. All I wanted to do was to quickly test and debug any scripting errors. Since I'm not hosting this site locally, I don't want to turn my PC into a web server.
Microsoft Visual Studio comes with a development web server for ASP.NET. While it is quite buggy, it's just the right tool for developing web pages. Looking around, I found a few miserable attempt at some thing similar, but most of them do not even parse the URI for GET params, let alone handling POST requests.
I quickly determined the following requirements:
· Can be tested with any browsers (therefore, must be a web server)
· Must not use .NET framework - PHP developers don't necessary care about .NET
· Small size and no installation - so I could grab it here and use it on any computer (hence, no .NET again)
· Must be able to handle GET, POST and HEAD requests
· Must not rely on PHP to be installed
· Supports PHP extensions and PHP.ini (most scripts require them)
This is the result. Weighing in at just over 500KB in size and using around 9MB of memory with PHP DLL running, QuickPHP is one of the most lightweight fully functional standalone PHP web server in the world today!
Here are some key features of "QuickPHP Web Server":
· A PHP development web server
· The PHP version of Microsoft Visual Studio's ASP.NET Development Server
· Extremely lightweight in both disk space (file size) and memory footprint
· An empty WinForms .NET application uses more memory than this web server!
· Ideal for quickly testing your PHP scripts locally
· Without the hassle of converting your machine into a web server
· Runs as a standalone application
· Serves HTML and PHP files
· Can be tested with any browsers
· Small size and no installation - so you could grab it here and use it on any computer
· Handles GET, POST and HEAD requests
· Supports PHP Sessions and Cookies
· Does not rely on PHP to be installed
· Supports PHP extensions and PHP.ini (most scripts require them)
· Supports command line arguments
· Supports request mods (а la Apache modules such as mod_rewrite, mod_headers etc.) using PHP scripts
· Tested with PHPBB3 - from installation to a fully running forum
· Purely Win32 application - does NOT require .NET framework
Requirements:
· Internet Browser
What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]
· Supports relative path for Document Root Path (useful for carrying around your website and QuickPHP in a USB stick).
Find us on Google+
