I'm trying to get MediaWiki running locally on Windows. With MAMP and PHP 8 or newer, Apache turns green for about a second and then stops, while MySQL continues running. The Apache error log only shows a stale PID-file warning, an SSL session-cache warning, and a heartbeat-module notice. PHP 7.4 starts normally, but the current MediaWiki release requires PHP 8.3 or newer. Would it be better to troubleshoot MAMP, switch to another local PHP environment, or use Docker Desktop or a virtual machine that already runs Docker?
3 Answers
The messages shown in the Apache log do not look like the actual startup failure. The PID warning usually means Apache did not shut down cleanly, while the SSL and heartbeat entries are generally warnings or notices. Run `C:MAMPbinapachebinhttpd.exe -t` from Command Prompt, and check for another process already using ports 80 or 443. That should reveal a syntax error or port conflict that the MAMP interface is hiding.
Since Docker is already available, the official MediaWiki image is a straightforward option. For a basic SQLite setup, you can run `docker run --name wiki -p 8080:80 -v wiki-data:/var/www/data -d mediawiki`, open `http://localhost:8080`, choose SQLite in the installer, and then copy the generated `LocalSettings.php` into the container with `docker cp LocalSettings.php wiki:/var/www/html/`.
Laragon is probably the simplest replacement on Windows. It handles Apache, PHP versions, and local sites with much less configuration than a container setup. You can install a PHP 8.3 build and use it for MediaWiki without having to troubleshoot MAMP’s bundled Apache.
That works, but Laragon is less cumbersome on Windows if the goal is just a local development install. Containers are most useful when you also want to reproduce a deployment environment.