| isChild | anchor |
|---|---|
true |
mac_setup |
macOS comes prepackaged with PHP but it is normally a little behind the latest stable release. There are multiple ways to install the latest PHP version on macOS.
Homebrew is a package manager for macOS that helps you easily install PHP and various extensions. The Homebrew core repository provides "formulae" for PHP 5.6, 7.0, 7.1, and 7.2. Install the latest version with this command:
brew install [email protected]
You can switch between Homebrew PHP versions by modifying your PATH variable. Alternatively, you can use brew-php-switcher to switch PHP versions automatically.
The MacPorts Project is an open-source community initiative to design an easy-to-use system for compiling, installing, and upgrading either command-line, X11 or Aqua based open-source software on the OS X operating system.
MacPorts supports pre-compiled binaries, so you don't need to recompile every dependency from the source tarball files, it saves your life if you don't have any package installed on your system.
At this point, you can install php54, php55, php56, php70 or php71 using the port install command, for example:
sudo port install php56
sudo port install php71
And you can run select command to switch your active PHP:
sudo port select --set php php71
phpbrew is a tool for installing and managing multiple PHP versions. This can be really useful if two different applications/projects require different versions of PHP, and you are not using virtual machines.
Another popular option is php-osx.liip.ch which provides one liner installation methods for versions 5.3 through 7.1. It doesn't overwrite the PHP binaries installed by Apple, but installs everything in a separate location (/usr/local/php5).
Another option that gives you control over the version of PHP you install, is to compile it yourself. In that case be sure to have installed either Xcode or Apple's substitute "Command Line Tools for XCode" downloadable from Apple's Mac Developer Center.
The solutions listed above mainly handle PHP itself, and do not supply things like Apache, Nginx or a SQL server. "All-in-one" solutions such as MAMP and XAMPP will install these other bits of software for you and tie them all together, but ease of setup comes with a trade-off of flexibility.