How to host WordPress on Windows

WordPress is three things: some PHP code, a web server to run it, and a database to store its content. None of that needs IIS, and none of it needs Linux. On Windows it runs the same way it runs everywhere else — you just need the three parts and a way to start them again after a reboot.

This page explains how WordPress actually runs on Windows, and the much shorter way to do it with WinPanel, a free control panel that sets the whole thing up for you.

The three parts

PHP. WordPress is written in PHP. On Windows the right build is the Non-Thread-Safe one, run through FastCGI — which is what PHP’s own documentation recommends for exactly this. One thing to know: a single PHP process on Windows answers one request at a time, so a real site runs a small pool of them and the web server shares requests across the pool. PHP also needs Microsoft’s Visual C++ runtime installed, or it will not start at all.

A web server. Something has to take the request for a page and hand it to PHP, then serve the images, CSS and JavaScript straight off disk. That is all a “reverse proxy” or “web server” means here. WinPanel uses Caddy, which also sorts out the free HTTPS certificate and renews it for you.

A database. WordPress keeps every post, page and setting in a MySQL-compatible database. MariaDB is the free, drop-in one, and it runs happily as a Windows service.

The hard way

Doing it by hand means: download and unpack PHP, install the C++ runtime it needs, write a php.ini, work out how to keep a pool of php-cgi processes running across reboots, configure a web server to route PHP to them, install and initialise MariaDB, create a database and a login that can only reach that one database, download WordPress, and write a wp-config.php that ties it together. Every one of those is a place to get it subtly wrong, and none of them is the website you actually wanted.

The WinPanel way

WinPanel does all of it from one button.

  1. Install WinPanel and open it.
  2. Press Add a website and choose WordPress.
  3. Give it a name and, if you have one, a domain.

The panel downloads the current WordPress from wordpress.org while you watch, creates a MariaDB database and a login scoped to just that database, writes the configuration, and starts everything as services that come back on their own after a reboot. When it finishes it opens WordPress’ own one-minute setup — the page where you name the site and make your login — and from there it is an ordinary WordPress.

The database server (MariaDB) and PHP are ordinary programs in the panel’s Programs list, so you can install them once and use them for as many sites as you like — WordPress or your own PHP code. Each site’s Databases tab shows what it has, and a database browser is built into the panel, so you can look at and edit a site’s tables without installing anything else.

Your own PHP code

WordPress is just the common case. A site written in PHP works the same way: choose A PHP website when you add a site, or point the panel at a Git repository — a repository with an index.php is recognised automatically, including a public web root and a Composer install on each deploy when the project has a composer.json.

What WinPanel is

A free, self-hosted control panel for Windows Server 2022/2025 and Windows 11 Home or Pro. It manages websites, HTTPS, DNS, email and customer accounts from one web page, with no IIS and no command line. See the repository for the full picture, or the hosting guide for the no-jargon version.