Take the 2-minute tour ×  I'm wondering what are the advantages
of using a MAMP stack instead of Web Sharing provided with Mac
natively and MySQL downloaded and installed manually?  I can see
how in some cases MAMP can have latest/other versions of
apache/mysql/php, but are there any other advantages?  My MCB
came with Snow Leopard 10.6.6 with Apache 2.2.15 and PHP 5.3.3 -
so fairly recent (although not the latest) versions. Since they
both were installed I saw little reason getting something that
has same functionality.  Installing MySQL was dead simple too so
that couldn't be the reason.  share|improve this question I'd be
curious to see disadvantages also in the answers. –  g . Mar 18
'11 at 9:52  3 Answers 3  up vote 10 down vote accepted  I'd say
unified GUI integration.   With MAMP, you've got a single window
to manage Apache, PHP, and MySQL. Whereas with the built-in
stack, you have to active PHP manually and have another
interface for MySQL (with no easy way to turn it on or off)
MAMP settings  share