I’ve switched all my local WordPress development over to Local by Flywheel. I heard about it from y’all when we did a poll not to long ago about local WordPress development. Bottom line: it’s really good. It does everything you want it to, well, with zero hassle, and nothing more.
Using Local Connect, you can easily move a site between a local environment and the live environment on one of two preferred hosting providers: Flywheel and WP Engine. This dramatically streamlines the offline-editing and go-live process, and it’s totally free to use. Local by FlyWheel is a free application that makes it easy to get a local WordPress environment up and running fast. In this course, instructor Morten Rand-Hendriksen helps you install and run WordPress locally on both Windows and Mac using Local.
Automatic site deployment (for Flywheel and WP Engine customers) Multisite support; There is also a Pro version with additional features like file sync, deployment to staging, and priority support for $20/month. Plus, a team version for $50/month. How to Use Local to Create a Local WordPress Website. Local by Flywheel is a simplified and user-friendly package intended to be used in conjunction with WordPress software. As it will dramatically increase outputs and workflows, it can be a powerful solution for those who find it difficult to maintain their current website.
Running Multiple WordPress Installs (PHP, MySQL, Web Server)
That’s kind of the whole point. Local by Flywheel spins up a local site for you with all the dependencies that WordPress needs. Just by picking a few options and giving the site a name, you’ve spun up a new WordPress install in a few seconds.
And it’s ready to go!
Nice UI
Surely what Local by Flywheel is doing under the hood is quite complicated, but the UI for the app isn’t at all. I’m a big fan of apps like this. The super clean UI makes everything feel so easy and simple, despite it actually being complex and powerful. Just the information and controls you need!
HTTPS (SSL)
The web is moving more and more toward all-HTTPS, which is fantastic. With all the setup options Local by Flywheel offers, you can get your production and development versions of your site pretty close. We should be taking that another step further and be working locally over HTTPS, if our production sites are.
Local by Flywheel doesn’t just make it easy, it automatically sets up HTTPS for you! And of course, it just works. You probably want to trust that local certificate though to make it even smoother.
But wait! Don’t follow my awkward and slightly complex instructions. There is a one-click button right in Local by Flywheel to trust the certificate.
Combining with CodeKit
For all my simple mostly-solo projects, I’ve long been a fan of having CodeKit watch the project, so I preprocess all my CSS and JavaScript, optimize my images, and all that good task runner stuff. That’s easy, just point the CodeKit browser refreshing URL at the Local by Flywheel URL.
Migrating
Another one-click button I love in Local by Flywheel is the one that jumps you right to Sequel Pro.
This was mighty handy for me as I was migrating from a couple of different setups. For a zillion years I used MAMP, and configured Sequel Pro to be my database manager. Then for a bit, I switched over to Docker to manage my local WordPress stuff, which was fun and interesting but was ultimately wasn’t as easy as I wanted it to be. I also used Sequel Pro when I was in that phase.
So I was able to really quickly export and import the databases where I needed them!
It’s also worth mentioning that if you don’t have an existing local setup you’re migrating from, but do have a production site, I highly recommend WP DB Migrate Pro for yanking down that production database in an extremely painless fashion.
Live Link
As if that wasn’t enough, they tossed in one more really cool little feature. One click on the “Live Link” feature, and it fires up an ngrok URL for you. That’s a live-on-the-internet URL you can use to share your localhost. Send it to a client! Debug a mobile issue! Very cool.
TLDR: I’m a fan of Local by Flywheel!
Take the pain out of building site search with the Algolia hosted API. Start free now!
Have you seen Local by Flywheel? It’s a native app for helping set up local WordPress developer environments. I absolutely love it and use it to do all my local WordPress development work. It brings a lovingly designed GUI to highly technical tasks in a way that I think works very well. Plus it just works, which wins all the awards with me. Need to spin up a new site locally? Click a few buttons. Working on your site? All your sites are right there and you can flip them on with the flick of a toggle.
Local by Flywheel is useful no matter where your WordPress production site is hosted. But it really shines when paired with Flywheel itself, which is fabulous WordPress hosting that has all the same graceful combination of power and ease as Local does.
Just recently, we moved ShopTalkShow.com over to Local and it couldn’t have been easier.
Local By Flywheel Alternative
Running locally.
Setting up a new local site (which you would do even if it’s a long-standing site and you’re just getting it set up on Flywheel) is just a few clicks. That’s one of the most satisfying parts. You know all kinds of complex things are happening behind the scenes, like containers being spun up, proper software being installed, etc, but you don’t have to worry about any of it.
(Local is free, by the way.)
The Cross-platform-ness is nice.
Local By Flywheel Download Free
I work on ShopTalk with Dave Rupert, who’s on Windows. Not a problem. Local works on Windows also, so Dave can spin up site in the exact same way I can.
Setting up Flywheel hosting is just as clean and easy as Local is.
If you’ve used Local, you’ll recognize the clean font, colors, and design when using the Flywheel website to get your hosting set up. Just a few clicks and I had that going:
Things that are known to be a pain the butt are painless on Local, like making sure SSL (HTTPS) is active and a CDN is helping with assets.
You get a subdomain to start, so you can make sure your site is working perfectly before pointing a production domain at it.
I didn’t just have to put files into place on the new hosting, move the database, and cross my fingers I did it all right when re-pointing the DNS. I could get the site up and running at the subdomain first, make sure it is, then do the DNS part.
But the moving of files and all that… it’s trivial because of Local!
The best part is that shooting a site up to Flywheel from Local is also just a click away.
Local By Flywheel Ssl
All the files and the database head right up after you’ve connected Local to Flywheel.
All I did was make sure I had my local site to be a 100% perfect copy of production. All the theme and plugins and stuff were already that way because I was already doing local development, and I pulled the entire database down easily with WP DB Migrate Pro.
I think I went from “I should get around to setting up this site on Flywheel.” do “Well that’s done.” in less than an hour. Now Dave and I both have a local development environment and a path to production.