I just got a Mini Server to use at my workstation. I do some web development and on my MBA I used to run XAMPP, which worked perfectly fine.
Since I'm now using OSX Lion Server, I'm curious if I can run Apache/MySql/PHP natively without XAMPP. And if so, are there advantages to doing so?
OSX (Server
and regular) already have Apache, PHP and PostgreSQL built in. A bit of googling will tell you how to get at them - On Server you can do some of this via the Server app. The upside is that you only have one server running and don't have to use alternative ports for your development. The downside is that you're stuck with the versions and modules that come with Lion (and PHP has a *lot* of options) - also, when I briefly played with Server, although you could put anything you like in the Apache config files, it broke the GUI website configuration app.
Personally, I use
MacPorts to download and build the tools I need with the appropriate options. On regular OS X, you just run the MacPorts Apache instead of the built-in one. I don't use Lion Server, so I'm not sure how that plays out. You can also install MySQL via MacPorts.
OTOH, if XAMPP does the job for you I don't see any particular reason to switch. It looks like it keeps everything separate from the OS X config files so, if you're using the other features of Server it might be best to stick with XAMPP.
