About ServBay

ServBay is an all-in-one local web development environment management tool for macOS and Windows. It greatly simplifies the process of setting up, configuring, and maintaining your development environment, allowing you to launch projects within minutes and focus on writing code—not troubleshooting settings.

Core Overview

The core mission of ServBay is to relieve developers from the burden of configuring environments when switching between different projects or technology stacks. With a unified management interface, developers can effortlessly deploy and manage a wide range of services, quickly building local development environments tailored to specific project requirements.

Key Features & Included Packages

ServBay comes with a rich selection of software packages covering the main technology stacks necessary for web development, and is continuously updated to support the latest advancements:

• Popular programming languages: Including PHP, Python, Node.js, Go, Java, .NET, Ruby, Rust, and more, with multi-version support and fast switching.
• Robust relational database support: Including MariaDB, MySQL, and PostgreSQL.
• Flexible NoSQL databases & caching services: Offering Redis, MongoDB, Memcached, and more.
• Multiple web server options: Supports Apache, NGINX, and Caddy for configuring and managing your websites.
• Essential developer tools: Integrated dnsmasq (DNS service) for easy local domain resolution; Mailpit mail server for local email testing; MinIO for local object storage; RabbitMQ for message queue development, and more.
• Local AI/LLM environments: Includes Ollama, allowing developers to quickly deploy and test AI and large language model applications locally.

Enhanced Local Development Features

ServBay offers a suite of advanced features to optimize the local development experience:

• Built-in PKI system & local HTTPS support: ServBay features a complete PKI system. Developers can easily create and manage self-signed SSL certificates, and have them trusted in browsers using ServBay User CA or ServBay Public CA. This enables production-like HTTPS security in local environments—even for non-existent local domains and TLDs (such as .servbay)—allowing full-site HTTPS access (like https://api.servbay.demo) without browser security warnings, dramatically enhancing efficiency and experience. No need to purchase domains or certificates for local development. ServBay also supports applying for and managing SSL certificates via ACME.
• Rich library of precompiled extensions: ServBay provides many popular precompiled extension modules, sparing developers the hassle of manual compilation. Examples include PHP's XDebug (powerful debugging), IMAP, imagick (image processing), GD, Phalcon, swoole (high-performance async framework), and PostgreSQL extensions like postgis (GIS), pgrouting (routing), pgvector (vector search), pg_jieba, and zhparser (Chinese tokenization). Enable extensions as needed for your projects.
• Support for the latest protocols & language versions: ServBay natively supports HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, as well as the newest language runtimes, such as PHP 8.5 and Node.js 23, ensuring you're always developing with cutting-edge technology.
• Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) support: Simplifies local development and debugging for front-end/back-end separation.

Streamlined Management & Team Collaboration

• Intuitive graphical user interface (GUI): ServBay features a powerful, user-friendly management console. With the GUI, developers can easily install, upgrade, start, stop, and switch between different software versions (PHP, Node.js, databases, etc.), and configure websites, database users, and more.
• Modular design & fast environment switching: Its modular architecture allows developers to freely combine and switch between different service versions like building blocks, quickly simulating complex development environments to meet specific project needs—for example, setting unique PHP and database versions for each project.
• Simplified team collaboration: ServBay is a perfect fit for development teams. It helps team members quickly synchronize their development environments, ensuring consistent setups across the board, minimizing issues caused by environment discrepancies, and boosting collaboration efficiency.

Portable, Clean, and Easy to Manage

ServBay is designed to be green and clean, making no changes to your system's original environment settings. All ServBay-related software packages, configurations, website files, and database data are stored in the /Applications/ServBay directory. This centralized management makes backup, migration, and removal incredibly straightforward—simply copy or delete the directory as needed.

• Data backup & recovery: ServBay offers powerful backup and restore features, supporting both manual and automated backup of website files, databases (including settings), SSL certificates, and other critical data, ensuring your development work is always safe and secure.
• Database password reset: A convenient way to reset the root user password for MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL, helping you avoid headaches from forgotten credentials.

With ServBay, developers can leave behind the hassle of environment setup and devote more energy to creative coding.