Fresh Mac to WordPress in One App

WPXen is a free, open-source macOS app for local WordPress development, built for working with AI coding agents. It runs your WordPress sites on .test domains using Homebrew's nginx, PHP-FPM and MySQL, and puts an AI agent terminal, the site's files, its git changes and an in-app browser side by side for each site.

No. Install only WPXen. On first launch its onboarding checks what your Mac is missing: if Homebrew isn't installed it opens the official Homebrew installer in Terminal for you, then installs nginx, PHP, MySQL, dnsmasq and WP-CLI itself and points .test domains at your Mac. phpMyAdmin, Mailpit and HTTPS certificates are set up automatically the first time you use them.

Yes. WPXen is free and open source, with no account, sign-up, subscription or paid tier. You can download the .dmg for Apple Silicon or Intel, or build it from source on GitHub.

Claude Code, Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor Agent, Antigravity, Grok, Command Code and MiMo Code, plus a plain terminal. WPXen detects whichever CLIs you have installed, can install a missing one for you, and starts each agent in the site's own folder. You can run several sessions per site at once.

No. WPXen runs the services natively from your Homebrew install: nginx, PHP-FPM, MySQL and Mailpit run as supervised child processes of the app, and dnsmasq answers for the .test domains. There are no containers or virtual machines, so sites start instantly and files are just files on your Mac.

Yes. Every site picks its own PHP version, and sites on different versions are served side by side, each by its own PHP-FPM pool. WP-CLI and the agent terminals use the same version as the site. Any Homebrew PHP works, including end-of-life 8.0 and 7.4 from the shivammathur/php tap.

Yes. In the Agents section, Add project → Add folder turns any folder on your Mac into a project, so you get the same agent terminals, file explorer, git changes and in-app browser for a Laravel app, a Node project or anything else. The WordPress-only actions are simply hidden for it.

WPXen runs on macOS 12 Monterey or later, on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. It runs its services through Homebrew, which onboarding helps you install if it's missing. Ports 80 and 443 must be free, so quit other local stacks such as Laravel Herd, Valet or MAMP first - WPXen replaces them.

Because the build is not signed with an Apple Developer ID or notarized, so macOS quarantines it on download. After the first blocked launch, open System Settings, go to Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. Or clear the flag once in Terminal with xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/WPXen.app, then open the app normally.

WPXen covers the same local-server ground - one-click sites, PHP switching, HTTPS, mail catching - and also sets up the underlying stack on a fresh Mac, so there is no separate install of Homebrew, PHP, MySQL or phpMyAdmin to do first. It is also built around AI agents as part of the workflow. Each site gets agent terminals, its files, git changes and a browser in one window, agents notify you when they finish or need input, and the services run natively from Homebrew rather than in containers.