These are: Portable XAMPP, Instant WordPress, and UwAmp.Īnd in this article we’re going to show you how to set each platform up and which gets our vote as the best for running portable WordPress from a flash drive. Upon conducting some intensive Google research, we’ve identified three server platforms that meet the minimum requirements to run WordPress, and can be installed and run from a flash drive. PHP and MySQL packages must be designed to be WordPress portable in order to be installed on a flash drive.

While all of those options will do just fine when installed on a computer, that’s not what we’re trying to achieve.

There’s a long list of local development servers like XAMPP, MAMP, VVV, WAMP, and others that’ll do the trick, right? To run WordPress you need a web server that offers two things: PHP and a suitable database management system. In these two scenarios running WordPress on a USB flash drive will allow you to have a portable WordPress site for development and demonstration purposes.

You want to distribute a copy of a WordPress site without hosting it on a web server.

You need to work on a WordPress development project locally on more than one machine.

Some might think so, but I can think of two scenarios where this “silly trick” proves it has real-world merit: Shouldn’t this be filed away under “silly WordPress dev tricks” that might have marginal educational value with no real-world application and merit?

Why in the world would you ever need to run WordPress from a flash drive?

And as you’ll soon discover, a portable WordPress installation can be incredibly useful in a number of situations. While some actions can be seen as nothing more than “silly WordPress dev tricks.” Installing and running a WordPress site from a USB flash drive isn’t one of them.

Xampp install wordpress mac