Which build should I choose to learn (and work with) PHP on Windows?

Question

PHP

What is the best server build to use for learning (perhaps working on) PHP on Windows and why?

• Open Server - Open Server (v. 5.2.9) uses PHP version 7.2.10. At the office The PHP website PHP.NET says that the new stable version of PHP is 7.3.2! If using OSPanel, is it possible to update PHP and is it worth it?
  
• XAMPP - same problem...
  
• Vagrant - Tried 1 time using Vagrant (box - ubuntu/xenial64). Installed the latest versions of MariaDB, PHP, Apache from scratch. I found it very inconvenient.
  

Haven't tried other builds like WAMP, MAMP (and DOCKER)...

Answer 1

For PHP it is better to throw out Windows from the computer.

Answer 2

Ideally, you should be able to deploy the environment without any builds. If you are only interested in learning PHP, you can postpone administration for now and study on Open Server.

Answer 3

To learn, just download php https://windows.php.net/download/
That's all. The server already comes out of the box php.net/manual/ru/features.commandline.webserver.php and the database can then be downloaded separately if necessary.
But of course I am for Docker.

Answer 4

Use a virtual server, set up the same way as a productive one. If the productive server is dedicated, then ideally then docker

Answer 5

Good afternoon. If you want to understand linux, write everything in the console and just soak up new knowledge, I recommend you Vagrant (a good video manual) because it is easy to learn and there are many nice functions like taking snapshots, writing commands to the vagrant file, etc. There are also many ready-made Boxes https://app.vagrantup.com/boxes/search that may suit your needs.
The old fashioned way of course WAMP, MAMP. The minimum amount of code and everything is mainly through the GUI.
Also deal with Docker, it's everywhere now.
Good luck!

Answer 6

You can put everything from scratch on Windows.
OpenServer has development porting issues when upgrading versions, meaning if you try to use more recent versions of php you will have to download a new version of OpenServer and redeploy your project with database dumps migrated.
Not to mention the size of OpenServer itself - an example of 8 GB of unnecessary programs.
Using Docker and other things if you are a beginner will confuse you even more...