Free local WordPress environment with real HTTPS, one click, no Docker
ReDock spins up a full local WordPress site, PHP, MySQL, https://name.test with a trusted cert, in one click on macOS. Free, no Docker, no terminal.
The fastest free local WordPress environment on a Mac is one click: ReDock provisions PHP (pinned per site), a MySQL database, and a complete WordPress install, then serves it at a real https://name.test domain with a locally trusted certificate. No Docker, no docker-compose files, no terminal, no editing /etc/hosts. It’s a native macOS app, free.
What “one click” actually provisions
Local WordPress setups usually fail on the plumbing, not the WordPress. ReDock handles the plumbing as one provisioning step:
- PHP, pinned per site. Each site declares its PHP version and keeps it. Your legacy client site on one version and your new build on another coexist without conflict.
- MySQL, one database per site. Created automatically, wired into
wp-config, isolated from every other site. The databases guide covers inspecting and connecting to it. - A real HTTPS domain.
https://yoursite.test, with a certificate your Mac actually trusts. No browser warnings, no clicking through “proceed anyway.” - The WordPress install itself. Core downloaded, database connected, site installed and running.
The status you see is honest: ReDock maps the UI’s state from the real process tree. “Running” means the processes are alive — not that a container claims to be healthy.
Why real HTTPS locally is worth it
Plenty of local tools stop at http://localhost:8888. That breaks more than aesthetics:
- Secure cookies and anything gated on a secure context behave differently over plain HTTP.
- Mixed-content bugs stay invisible until staging.
- OAuth callbacks and webhook-style integrations often insist on HTTPS.
- Hardcoded-URL problems surface early when your local domain looks like a real one.
A trusted local certificate means your dev environment behaves like production from the first request. When you eventually share the site through a tunnel or deploy it, there’s no HTTP-to-HTTPS surprise waiting.
No Docker is a feature, not a gap
Docker-based WordPress environments work, but they tax you continuously: a virtual machine layer on macOS, image pulls, port collisions, volume-permission puzzles, and a container daemon eating RAM in the background. For a single developer running websites on a laptop, that’s a lot of machinery for “run PHP and MySQL.”
ReDock is a native app — Tauri and Rust, not Electron — running native processes. Sites start fast, idle cheap, and stop cleanly when you quit the app. There is no daemon left humming after you close the window. If the app isn’t running, nothing is.
The trade-off is explicit: ReDock runs on macOS 12 or newer and on 64-bit Windows 10 or newer. There’s no Windows version.
More than WordPress, and more than a GUI
The same one-click flow covers other stacks — headless WordPress, Astro, Next.js, Node.js, Bun, and plain PHP all run under the same roof, each at its own .test domain. The stacks guide lists what’s supported, and Headless WordPress with Astro shows two of those stacks working as a pair.
The part that makes ReDock unusual: the entire app is exposed as MCP tools on localhost:47200. Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, or any MCP client can create sites, start and stop them, author Gutenberg content, and log into wp-admin via single-use magic links. Your local environment isn’t just clickable — it’s programmable by an agent. WordPress MCP: let Claude build, edit, and manage WordPress for you is the full tour.
Local sites also carry real workflows: site-level git (pull, inspect, deploy in place), one-click plugin branch switching, Cloudflare-tunnel sharing with named redock.xyz subdomains, and one-click deploys to Cloudflare Workers with custom domains. A local environment that dead-ends at localhost makes you rebuild everything elsewhere to ship; this one doesn’t.
Getting started
Download the app, drag it to Applications, open it, and create a site. That’s the setup. The install guide covers requirements and the first-site walkthrough takes you from empty dock to a running WordPress at https://something.test in a few minutes.
FAQ
Is it actually free?
Yes — ReDock is free. That includes unlimited local sites, HTTPS, the MCP surface, sharing via QuickShare tunnels, and Cloudflare Workers deploys. The paid part is ReDock Web, for the live client sites you look after.
Does it work on Windows or Linux?
No. ReDock is a native macOS app and requires macOS 12 or later. There are no current plans we’re announcing for other platforms.
Can I use an existing database or import a site?
Each ReDock site gets its own MySQL database, and you can inspect or connect to it with standard tools — see the databases guide. Standard WordPress import/export workflows apply from there.
If your current local setup involves a terminal, a YAML file, or a whale icon, try the one-click version — download ReDock and have a real HTTPS WordPress running before your coffee cools.