- Hey guys, my name is Christian Taylor.
Welcome back to Craylor Made,
where I like to talk about all things branding, marketing and entrepreneurship.
If you're new to WordPress, it may seem like you have to spend money just to try it out.
Traditionally, you'd buy a domain name, buy web hosting,
install WordPress on the web hosting and start developing your site.
But did you know that you can actually run WordPress locally on your computer totally free?
I discovered this tool called 'Local WP' recently,
and it's my new recommended way to get started learning WordPress 100% free.
So, what is Local and how does it work?
Well, instead of installing WordPress on a web server and connecting it to your domain,
Local installs WordPress locally on your computer.
This means that you can only view the website on your computer and not any device.
But it also means you don't have to pay for web hosting, or a domain name to get started with WordPress.
Local is ideal for anyone who wants to dabble with WordPress, but you aren't sure where to start.
You just want to play with the admin panel, try different themes and see if it's a fit for you.
Why should you have to spend money on web hosting and a domain,
if you just want to try WordPress and see what it's like?
So, local really serves two people groups in my testing:
Those who are tinkering with WordPress and don't actually intend to build a production website yet,
and those who are constantly editing WordPress sites, and use either WP Engine or Flywheel for web hosting.
I'll explain why this is the case throughout the video.
Once you download Local,
you can walk through a super simple step by step wizard to create a WordPress website.
You can create as many sites as you'd like, totally free,
and once you launch Local and activate it, you can view your WordPress site right on your computer.
Everything is created for you.
The WordPress files, database, and a tracking system to see outbound emails sent from WordPress.
It's a highly intuitive experience that doesn't require technical skills to use it,
and you could be playing with the WordPress dashboard in no time.
Now, you may be asking, "Can I use this to build my WordPress website locally on my computer,
and then upload it to a web server when I'm ready to go live?"
Technically speaking, yes,
but it's only an easy upload process if you use WP Engine or Flywheel,
and that's probably because Local is made by the Flywheel team, and Flywheel owns WP Engine.
And this is why I talk about the two people groups Local serves best:
those learning and playing with WordPress for fun and those who use WP Engine or Flywheel.
I went through the process of transferring my local site to Cloudways,
and I can tell you that it's not an easy process at all.
Since Cloudways is a different host from WP Engine or Flywheel,
I wanted to experience what that would be like,
to see if it's practical for you to build your WordPress website using Local,
intending to then make it public later on a different web host.
I do not recommend it.
With WP Engine or Flywheel, which are premium managed WordPress hosts,
you can just enter your credentials,
and have the site automatically uploaded to your hosting account instantly; with one click!
I logged in with my WP Engine account,
and was able to pull down a website I have on my hosting account with just a click,
and it ran perfectly on my computer; uploading is just a click away as well.
So, again if you're not going to use WP Engine or Flywheel,
this is not a tool to aid in the production of your website.
You would want to just get WordPress hosting and build your site on the server from day zero.
So, this is really for those of you who are learning WordPress, and just messing around for fun,
or you are going to use WP Engine and Flywheel,
and you want to get started as quick as possible, absolutely free.
So at this point, you might be asking yourself, "If I do decide to use WP engine or Flywheel,
and I'm serious about building a company website right now, is there any reason to use Local?
I'm not here to tinker with WordPress so,
can't I just build the WordPress site on the server using my domain name?"
And, yes, you absolutely can build a WordPress site on your web server.
This is how I built every single WordPress site I've ever made.
So, if you aren't looking for a fast or free way to play with WordPress,
the main reason I can think to still use Local is speed.
When you build a WordPress site on your web hosting account, you'll notice the admin back-end is quite slow.
Every time you make a change and save it, the page spins for a while.
When you open a new tab to preview your changes, the page spins for a while.
Things are lightning fast with Local,
because everything is happening right on your computer, instead of loading files over the internet.
There's a feature called live links, that will give you a temporary URL to enter on another device,
and view the website as long as Local is running on your computer.
In other words, it's using your computer as a temporary web server,
so other devices can connect to it and view the website too.
For the advanced WordPress developers watching, Local gives you access to the MySQL database via Adminer.
You can choose between Apache or Nginx, and you can select your PHP version.
Local does not Pro version for the costly price of $20 a month, and it gives you more options for:
live links, a local image optimizer, link checker, a feature called Instant reload,
and premium support that can supposedly help you with WordPress issues, regardless of the host you use.
I didn't test the pro version,
because I personally would be unwilling to pay $20 a month to use it myself,
but the option is there if you'd like to explore it.
In conclusion, Local definitely changed my outlook on experimenting with WordPress.
Since I've used WordPress for so many years,
I can spin up a new website on a server in an instant,
but there's absolutely no denying that Local speeds up the setup process a ton,
especially for first timers.
Just keep in mind that you'll pay for it big time later on,
if you decide you want to move your site from Local to a live web server,
and you do not use WP Engine or Flywheel for hosting.
That's definitely a big "Gotcha!"
So, what do you think of local WordPress development?
Is it something you'd like to try or will you stick to developing on a web server?
I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments down below.
And if you like this video, do be sure to hit that subscribe button,
and click the bell so you don't miss when I release new videos.
With that said, I will catch you guys next time.