XAMPP is the most popular software package which is used to set up a PHP development environment for web services by providing all the required software components. During the process of software deployment, most of the web servers use almost similar components, so use of XAMPP provides easy transition from local server to live server. XAMPP is a AMP stack which stands for Cross platform, Apache, MySQL, PHP, perl with some additional administrative software tools such as PHPMyAdmin (for database access), FileZilla FTP server, Mercury mail server and JSP Tomcat server.
Other commonly known software packages like XAMPP are WAMP, LAMP, and others.
The XAMPP server is used to test PHP pages. It works as local server. It contains a MySQL database to manage or save data on a local server.
Advantages of XAMPP:

• It is free and easy to use and easily available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS .
• It is a beginners friendly solution package for full stack web development.
• It is a open source software package which gives a easy installation experience.
• It is very simple and lightweight to create set up for development, testing and deployment.
• It is a time-saver and provides several ways for managing configuration changes.
• It handles many administrative tasks like checking the status and security.

Software components of XAMPP:

• Apache plays the role of processing the HTTP request. It is the actual default web server application. It is the most popular web servers maintained by Apache Software Foundation.
• MySQL The role of database management system in XAMPP is played by MySQL. It helps to store and manage collected data very efficiently. It is an open-source and most popular.
• PHP is the server-side scripting language which stand for Hypertext Preprocessor. It is embedded with HTML code which interacts with the webserver. It is an open-source and work well with MySQL and has become a common choice for web developers.
• Perl is the high-level programming language designed for text editing which serves purpose like web development and network programming.