XAMPP 2,521 from Apache 129 Friends was the default stack of a generation of PHP tutorials. Its newest release is 8.2.12 of 21 November 2023 (Windows and Linux: PHP 8.2.12, Apache 2.4.58, MariaDB 10.4.32 3,681 ); the macOS build stopped at 8.2.4 in April 2023. The only newer download, "XAMPP for Browsers" (PHP 8.3.12 on Alpine Linux 3.20 13,255 ), runs inside a web page, not as a server. In September 2026 that makes it the wrong choice:
MariaDB 10.4 reached end of life on 18 June 2024, and it is not the MySQL 9.7 524 this book uses.
PHP 8.2 gets security fixes only until 31 December 2026, and no installable build offers PHP 8.3 or later.
Apache 2.4.58 dates from 2023 and lacks every security fix up to the current 2.4.68.
Use it only where a course or legacy project demands it.