Laragon
Laragon is a portable, isolated, fast & powerful universal development environment for PHP, Node.js, Python, Java, Go, Ruby. It is fast, lightweight, easy-to-use and easy-to-extend.
Installation
Install Laragon using any of the 2 package manager or manually.
Option 1: Using choco
Step 1: Open your Terminal as Administrator
- Press
Windows Key + Xand select Windows PowerShell (Admin) or Command Prompt (Admin). - Click Yes if prompted by the User Account Control dialog.
Step 2: Install Laragon using command
choco install laragon -yThe -y flag automatically accepts all prompts, making the installation seamless.
Option 2: Using scoop
Step 1: Open your Terminal
You don’t need to run Terminal as Administrator.
Step 2: Install Laragon using command:
scoop bucket add extras
scoop install extras/laragonYou can change Laragon’s configuration later on.
Option 3: Install Manually
Step 1: Start by downloading Laragon Full (64-bit) edition which includes:
- Apache 2.4, Nginx, MySQL 8, PHP 8, Redis, Memcached, Node.js 18, npm, git
Step 2: Run installation wizard
Open the downloaded file, follow the installation wizard and click Next, Next, Next... .
Step 3: Setup - Welcome page
Step 4: Setup - Select location
Step 5: Setup - Options
For security purposes, Windows will ask you to confirm, just click “Run” to continue.
You can follow through the Laragon official installation guide for more details.
Configuration
With Laragon, you can easily switch between different versions of PHP, MySQL, MariaDB, and other tools.
Switching PHP, MySQL/MariaDB version
Open packages.conf file
Step 1: Start your Laragon app.
this will open the Laragon dashboard.
Step 2:
Right click anywhere on the blank space or find Laragon icon in the system tray.
Laragon dashboard context menu
Laragon system tray context menu
Step 3:
Go to Tools > Quick add > Configuration….
This will open the packages.conf file in notepad++.
Step 4: Add PHP version
Add the following line below the existing PHP version (eg. php8.2):
php8.3=https://windows.php.net/downloads/releases/archives/php-8.3.12-nts-Win32-vs16-x64.zip
Step 5: Add MariaDB version
Within notepad++, if you still have the packages.conf opened, add the following line below # MySQL:
You can follow previous steps to open packages.conf file.
# MariaDB
mariadb-11.4=https://archive.mariadb.org/mariadb-11.4.3/winx64-packages/mariadb-11.4.3-winx64.zip
Step 6: Save file changes
Once you’ve added those lines, save the file close notepad++.
Download and install newly added versions
Step 1
To install the versions we defined, right click on Laragon icon in the system tray and select Tools > Quick add > then select the tools you want to install, in this case we’ll install PHP 8.3 and MariaDB 11.4.
Step 2
Wait for the installation to complete.
A window prompt might appear before proceeding with installation. Click Yes to confirm.
Activate the newly installed versions
Step 1:
-
To activate PHP 8.3, right click on Laragon icon in the system tray and PHP > Version then select php-8.3.12.
-
Do the same for MariaDB 11.4, right click on Laragon icon in the system tray and MySQL > Version then select mariadb-11.4.3.
Step 2: Restart Laragon
-
Fully exit and restart Laragon by right clicking on the Laragon icon in the system tray and select Exit.
-
Once you open Laragon again, click on Start All button.
You should see Laragon started with MariaDB 11.4.3.
NoteWindows might prompt you to run services like
mysql. Click Yes to confirm.
Step 3: Verify installed versions
-
We can verify the installed versions using Laragon Terminal, simply right click on Laragon icon in the system tray and select Laragon > Terminal.
-
Then run the following commands:
terminalphp --version mysql --versionYou should see the following output:
NoteIf versions are not correct, try restarting Laragon, open a new Laragon terminal then run the commands again.