Kalabox

Kalabox

Kalabox is an open-source tool that provides a local development environment for Drupal and WordPress. It allows developers to easily set up, develop, and test websites without needing to install software directly on their system.
Kalabox image
drupal wordpress local-development

Kalabox: Local Development Environment for Drupal and WordPresss

Open-source tool for setting up, developing, and testing websites for Drupal and WordPress without installing software directly on the system.

What is Kalabox?

Kalabox is an open-source tool designed to simplify local web development with popular platforms like Drupal and WordPress. It provides a customizable environment that closely matches production setups without needing to manually configure stacks like LAMP or LEMP on your own machine.

Key features and benefits of Kalabox include:

  • Quickly spin up local development environments for Drupal, WordPress, and other CMS platforms.
  • Mimics hosting environments by using Docker containers behind the scenes.
  • Includes commonly-used services like Apache, Nginx, MySQL, PHP, Redis, and more.
  • Offers a plugin system to extend functionality by integrating other services.
  • Works across Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux operating systems.
  • Integrates with hosting services like Pantheon to push/pull sites from dev to production.
  • Complements existing workflows - works along tools you already use like MAMP/WAMP.
  • Simpler than configuring your own containers and services.
  • Free and open-source tool maintained by a community of developers.

Overall, Kalabox aims to streamline the local development process for web projects. It handles the complex backend configuration so developers can focus more on building sites rather than ops work. The tool continues to evolve by listening to user feedback to improve the out-of-box developer experience.

Kalabox Features

Features

  1. Local development environment for Drupal and WordPress
  2. Easy installation and configuration of web server stacks
  3. Integration with common development tools like PHP, MySQL, Apache
  4. Ability to mimic production environment locally
  5. Plugin system to extend functionality
  6. Command line interface and GUI available
  7. Support for Windows, Mac and Linux

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Simplifies local development setup

No need to install LAMP/LEMP stack directly

Consistent environment across different OSes

Faster testing iterations

Easier collaboration between developers

Cons

Limited to Drupal and WordPress only

Steeper learning curve than native stacks

Can be resource intensive

Not as customizable as native stacks

May not fully replicate production environment


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