Laragon - How to install and using it for local development

If you're a web developer, I recommend laragon as a web server for local development. Why laragon? in my experience laragon is easy to use make you fast and effective to develop your project.

The greatness of laragon

Automatically create virtual host

Mail Catcher And Mail Sender

Simple switching Apache, PHP, MySQL and MariaDB

Easy creating projects with frameworks like Laravel, CakePHP, Symfony and etc

You can setup your environment as you need very easy

Here's the official site: https://laragon.org

Installation Laragon

If you're going to download page. you can see some packages of laragon. You can choose to install 1 or more packages as you need.

In this tutorial I choose Laragon-WAMP Version 3.2. this packages include Apache to 2.4.29 VC15, Nginx 1.12, MySQL 5.7.19, PHP to 7.2.0 VC15, Node.js v-8, yarn 1.3.2 + ngrok, git, Memcached, Redis, Composer 1.5.3 . ...

Double click the installer you just downloaded to start the installation process.

In dialog box choose your language and then click ok

Press Next Then either leave the installation directory at default or choose a custom one directory in this case I put on default directory

and then press Next again. Read the information on this screen, you can checked or unchecked the configuration as you need.

after that press next once more. Read over the settings to confirm and then hit Install.

After finish, run the laragon.exe

Laragon homescreen

How to Use

In the homescreen any 5 button on the bottom, menu in the left top and gear icon in the right top.
Button Start All: This use to start all service of the laragon packages
Button Web: This button will open your default browser and navigate to localhost homepage.
Button Database: Will show the HeidiSql to config and manage your database
Button Terminal: Will show the cmder terminal including git
Button Root: will show the root directory of your project.
In the menu button you can see all configuration of laragon.
and gear icon you can see the preference window.

1. Configuration Domain for automatically create virtual host
Here is the preferences window of laragon

in this general tab you can change your projects directory and you can set the domain for virtual host name eg: {project_name}.me. By the default host name is http://project_name.dev.

Next, when you create new folder in Document Root folder of laragon and the laragon automatically creates virtual host for you. if you want see the project with virtual host you should click menu button and then select www, now you can see your project with virtual hostname. click the hostname to navigate in the browser.

2. Switching PHP , Apache and MYSQL version
You can change php , Apache and MySQL version very easy from Laragon menu

Just select version and click on it. Restart Laragon and you are ready to develop.

Download and add php versions to Laragon

For php version you can find them on http://windows.php.net/download/ . You need Thread Safe version. Download it and and unzip it in C:\install_folder\bin\php in this case C:\laragon\bin\php.

You can also enable or disable php extension very simple just click menu on left top hover on PHP -> Extentions and you just click the extension.

Changing your MySQL version is also that simple.

Download and install more MySQL versions

You can find and download MySQL zip version here https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/. Download Windows, ZIP Archive version and unzip it in C:\install_folder\bin\mysql.

But, in this case I switching with maria db.

Download and install Mariadb version on Laragon

Mariadb version you can download here https://downloads.mariadb.org/, click on latest version. For me lastest version is Download 10.2.11 Stable Now! and from inside download Windows zip file. Unzip and it in C:\install_folder\bin\mysql in this case C:\laragon\bin\mysql. Now restart Laragon and select your new version.

3. Easy creating projects with frameworks
You can easy create new project with number of platforms and frameworks. Laragon works with github so it will always download the newest version. Platforms and Framework that are default in Laragon are:

Laravel

Lumen

Symfony

CakePHP

WordPress

Joomla

others

You can also add platforms and frameworks you work with.

How to create new project with Laravel in Laragon?
Click Menu in main window of Laragon or right click with your mouse from System Tray and click Quick Create.

Select your platform or framework and click on it give your project a name. This name will be also the name of the folder and your domain. For example if we call the new project tutorial , domain will be http://tutorial.me.

Wait Laragon to do its work
When create project laragon automatically create database with the same name of project
Restart Laragon and now you can access your new site.

All done, I hope this tutorial can help you about laragon how to install and using it. and can make your local development faster and easier. Simple right.
Thank you

Posted on Utopian.io - Rewarding Open Source Contributors