Downsides of working with php's built-in server.

Question

I would like to use the php built-in server just for dev environment, as opposed to starting WAMP everything, which consumes more resources, and since my site does not depend on any of the apache modules, I was able to do some work just fine, also using mysql from the command line.

The problem I have encountered is that, The built-in server is definitely slower compared to WAMP. Specially when doing database queries.

But what I would like to know is that, if the server is 100% reliable in-terms of building projects with it and directly uploading it to my server. Are there any other precautions to consider before attempting to use it as replacement for wamp?

Answer 1

Your observations are correct. PHP's built-in webserver is usually slower than Apache+PHP, but for quick & dirty testing on your machine it's fine.

I prefer it over full stacks, because I don't like having Apache as a Service on my system which always starts (as XAMPP does by default) manually starting/restarting a Windows Service on the other hand can be quite annoying (compared to a simple php -S). You also might have to change configs (e.g. when using vhosts), copy/symlink your project, maybe edit your /etc/hosts-file. All in all I think the built-in server is less hassle, than full stacks like WAMP.

I don't think @Areks concern weighs heavily against using the built-in server. If this really is a concern for you, you should account for different systems/configurations, e.g. by writing tests and using tools TravisCI, Vagrant and/or others. If you develop for a specific system you probably have a staging environment (as similar to the production env as possible) anyway.

Answer 2

yes, you must been warned that the php builtin webserver does not provide support for .htaccess, which is extremely useful (though i use it quite often for small tests)