How Install and Setup Joomla on localhost using XAMPP in Windows?

Joomla is a free, open-source content management system (CMS) used to build and manage websites. It allows users to create and manage websites without having to write code, making it a popular choice for small to medium-sized businesses, non-profit organizations, and personal websites. Joomla is built on PHP and uses a MySQL database to store content. 

It has a user-friendly interface, a variety of extensions and plugins, and a large community of users who contribute to its development and support. Joomla is a highly customizable platform and can be used to build a wide range of websites, from simple blogs to complex e-commerce sites. Installation of Joomla is easy on the localhost, Joomla also works like WordPress as it is also based on PHP and MySQL. 

XAMPP Server

For running Joomla on your local host first you need to install the XAMPP server to your computer XAMPP makes your computer like the server. XAMPP is a free, open-source, and cross-platform web server solution stack package. It is used to develop and test dynamic websites and web applications locally on a personal computer. 

XAMPP stands for Cross-Platform (X), Apache (A), MariaDB (M), PHP (P), and Perl (P). It turns the computer into a local host and you don’t need to do extra work for making the server. For installing the XAMPP to your local computer follow this article – How to install XAMPP on Windows? After the successful installation of the XAMPP server to your computer, now it’s time to install Joomla. 

Steps to Install and Setup Joomla in Localhost using XAMPP

Above we have seen how we can install the XAMPP server to our computer and be ready with all its setup. Now it’s time to see how we can install the Joomla CMS to our local host. For installing Joomla in your localhost follow these simple steps,

Step 1: Go to the official website of Joomla and download its latest version from the website.

Joomla zip gets downloaded to your computer.

Step 2: Unzip or extract the zip file of the Joomla software which you have downloaded.

Step 3: Now copy the extracted file of the Joomla zip file and paste it into the xampp > htdocs folder. For convenience, we rename the extracted file as “joomla-gfg”.

Step 4: After pasting the Joomla project to the XAMPP in the htdocs folder, Now it’s time to open the XAMPP and start Apache and MySQL.

Step 5: Now open your favorite web browser, here I used the Chrome web browser and type the localhost. If the below UI opens in your browser then it means that XAMPP installation and everything is fine and now we can proceed with the further process.

Step 6: Create the database for the Joomla project in the phpMyAdmin, for creating the database now type the localhost/phpmyadmin in the browser and hit enter.

phpMyAdmin dashboard will appear on your screen.

Step 7: Create the database in the phpMyAdmin, Click on the “New” link to create the new database for your Joomla project.

Step 8: Type the database name, for the demo purpose here it is typed “joomla-gfg” as the database name. Later in the installation of Joomla, we used this name. And finally, click on the create button to create the database.

Step 9: After creating the database in the phpMyAdmin, now come to the browser and type the URL as the localhost and the folder name of the Joomla project here in my case it is “joomla-gfg”.

http://localhost/joomla-gfg

After typing the http://localhost/joomla-gfg the Joomla setup window will appear on your screen.

Step 10: Choose the language and type the name of the site. After this click on the “Setup Login Data” for further process.

Step 11: Now set your website login data user name, password, and email for your Joomla website and then click on the “Setup Database Connection” for further process.

Step 12: In this step, you have to configure the database. In the database, type choose MySQL, in the hostname choose localhost, in the username type “root”, in the password leave it blank, in the database name type the database name which you have created above in the phpMyAdmin.

And after this click on the “Install Joomla” button to install the Joomla CMS on your local host.

After clicking on “Install Joomla”, Joomla starts installing on the localhost.

Step 13: After the database configuration Joomla gets successfully installed on your local host.

Now you start using Joomla on your local host.

Step 14: For going into the admin panel click on the “Open Administrator” button to open the Admin panel the website.

Step 15: Now the admin login panel will appear on your screen. enter the Username and password and click on the Login button.

After clicking on the log in the admin panel will appear on your screen.

This is how you can install Joomla on your local host and start using it on your computer. Here you don’t need to purchase the hosting and you will learn it for free.

Hope you find this article helpful and that it solves your problem.