Beyond the fact that XAMPP bundles all the key elements of an AMPP stack and makes them work together it also includes a bunch of additional elements that expand the functionality and manageability of the stack.

MySQL without a GUI admin interface is a difficult beast to tame and that's why XAMPP has included PhpMyAdmin into the offering. It's actually built right into the main XAMPP dashboard as a tab so it's easily accessible as well. In some cases MySQL is overkill for basic database needs. XAMPP cover that need off with the inclusion of SQLite and its GUI admin phpSQLiteAdmin. The included Webalizer, Apache log file analyzer is basic but sure does beat trying to manually make sense of a log file.

PHP functionality has also been enhanced with the Freetype and Ming extensions which provide additional dynamic graphics capabilities to PHP. Both extensions also have demos included on the main XAMPP dashboard. Under the Instant Art tab w is an Example for PHP+GD+FreeType and under the Flash Art tab is an Example for PHP+MING.

Though PHP 5 was introduced in July of 2004 and offers the promise of backward compatibility with PHP 4 there are still a fair number of applications that just don't seem to work on PHP 5. XAMPP helps to alleviate the issue somewhat by including both PHP 4 and 5 as well as providing a simple command to switch between the two.

Type

php5	Activate PHP5
php4	Activate PHP4
phpstatus	Which version of PHP is active?

This version of XAMPP includes:

Apache 2.0.53
MySQL 4.1.11
PHP 4.3.11
PHP 5.0.4
Perl 5.8.6
ProFTPD 1.2.10
phpMyAdmin 2.6.1-pl3
OpenSSL 0.9.7d
GD 2.0.1
Freetype 2.1.7
libjpeg 6b
libpng 1.2.7
gdbm 1.8.0
zlib 1.1.4
expat 1.2
Sablotron 1.0
libxml 2.6.11
libxslt 1.1.8
Ming 0.2a
Webalizer 2.01
pdf class 009e
ncurses 5.8
mod_perl 2.0.0-RC4
FreeTDS 0.62.4
gettext 0.11.5
IMAP C-Client 2002b
OpenLDAP (client) 2.2.13
mhash library 0.8.18
mcrypt library 2.5.7
cURL 7.13.1
SQLite 2.8.9 (in case of PHP5: 2.8.14)
phpSQLiteAdmin 0.2
eAccelerator 0.9.2a

Next: Conclusion »