Web development on a Mac
Spin up and control many local sites without juggling Terminal windows, save and schedule your scripts, and target Docker or cloud.
No more juggling a wall of Terminal windows. FrontierStack is a local development environment that grows up into production: run many sites at once on localhost; each its own Apache/Nginx virtual host with the PHP version it needs and trusted HTTPS; and start, stop, edit or open any of them from one app, with no stack of shell tabs to manage. No Terminal required: the New Site (with DNS) wizard creates a vhost, a certificate and a DNS record in one flow, and the importer pulls your existing MAMP / XAMPP sites onto a managed Homebrew stack.
Your scripts, one keystroke away
Save the command-line one-liners and build steps you run all day into the Scripts palette; a small, always-on-top window you can keep beside your editor and pop open any time. Run any script with a click, or set it to fire automatically on real system cron; backups, cache warmers, deploys, log rotation. Each saved script is a genuine executable, so what you test by hand is exactly what runs on a schedule.
Pick your environment; local Docker or the cloud
Work across multiple environments from one window. If you live in containers, the Containers pane manages them without the CLI: start, stop, restart, prune, tail logs, exec into a shell, and bring a Compose project up or down; on Docker, OrbStack or Apple's container runtime. Then point the same actions at a cloud server over SSH when it's time to ship. Databases; MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis; are one click away, with per-instance credentials kept in a local vault.
Cloudflare, built in
Ship to the edge without leaving the app. Create a zone, add DNS records, purge the cache after a deploy (everything, a single URL or a path prefix), toggle Development Mode while you work, and keep an A record pointed at your changing IP with built-in dynamic DNS; no more bouncing to the Cloudflare dashboard between every change. Each pinned zone surfaces its SSL mode, cert expiry and today's cache hit-rate at a glance.
Debug it in plain English
When something breaks, ask the AI Administrator; "why is this site 502-ing?"; and it reads the logs, finds the cause and proposes a fix you approve. It works on your localhost and on your remote servers alike.
Services we install or monitor for this
This preset shows 71 services in 6 categories. FrontierStack can install, connect or monitor them for this job.
Version Control23
- AWS CodeCommit; Managed private Git repositories on AWS (API)
- Bitbucket; Atlassian Git hosting; Cloud or self-hosted (Data Center)
- code.storage; Code hosting / storage platform (cloud); see code.storage
- Codeberg; Free community Git hosting (Forgejo, nonprofit)
- Cursor Origin (Early Beta); Cursor's Git forge; live repositories and pull requests (cloud, Early Beta)
- Entire; Code collaboration platform (cloud); see entire.io
- Forgejo; Community fork of Gitea (Codeberg)
- gh-dash; Terminal dashboard for GitHub PRs & issues (gh extension)
- Gitea; Lightweight self-hosted Git service
- Gitea Actions Runner; CI runner for Gitea/Forgejo Actions
- GitHub; The Git host; live account dashboard (cloud)
- GitHub Enterprise; Self-hosted / managed GitHub for organizations
- GitLab; Full DevOps platform; repos, MRs, registry (cloud or self-hosted)
- Google Code (archive); Defunct; read-only archive for migrating old projects
- Graphite; Stacked-PR code review on top of GitHub (cloud + CLI)
- Jujutsu (jj); Git-compatible VCS with a simpler, more expressive model
- Phabricator / Phorge; Self-hosted code review & repos (now maintained as Phorge)
- Pierre; Fast code review & collaboration on Git (cloud)
- Rift; Git worktree manager; parallel feature work with an AI agent per worktree
- SourceForge; Open-source project hosting & downloads (cloud)
- SourceHut; Lightweight, email-driven Git suite (cloud or self-hosted)
- Subversion (SVN); Apache Subversion; centralized version control (self-hosted)
- Webhook (git-deploy); Push-to-deploy via webhooks
Databases16
- Apache Cassandra; Distributed wide-column database
- Apache CouchDB; Document database with HTTP API and sync
- CockroachDB; Distributed SQL database
- Couchbase Server; Distributed document, key-value and search database
- Firebase; Google's backend-as-a-service; Firestore, Auth, Storage, Functions (cloud)
- Microsoft SQL Server; Microsoft relational database for Windows and Linux
- MongoDB; Document (NoSQL) database
- Neo4j; Graph database with Cypher query language
- Neon; Serverless Postgres; autoscaling & branching (cloud API)
- Oracle Database; Enterprise relational database
- Patroni; HA PostgreSQL; automatic failover
- PlanetScale; Hosted MySQL with database branching (cloud API)
- PocketBase; Open-source backend in one file (SQLite + auth + realtime)
- PostgREST; Instant REST API over a PostgreSQL database
- ScyllaDB; High-performance Cassandra-compatible database
- Turso; Distributed SQLite (libSQL) at the edge (cloud API)
Runtimes15
- .NET (ASP.NET Core); Run ASP.NET Core & Blazor apps (Kestrel)
- Astro; Content-first framework; zero JS by default; popular headless-WordPress front end
- code-server; VS Code in the browser (self-hosted)
- Fermyon Spin; Serverless WebAssembly apps & HTTP microservices
- Mojo; Modular's AI systems language (Python-family syntax)
- Next.js; React framework served by a Node process (SSR/SSG)
- Nuxt (Vue); Vue framework served by a Node process (SSR/SSG)
- Solid (SolidJS); Fine-grained reactive UI framework; SolidStart serves it as a Node process
- Supabase Edge Functions; Deno serverless functions on the edge
- SvelteKit (Svelte); Svelte app framework served by a Node process (SSR/SSG)
- Tailwind CSS; Utility-first CSS; standalone build CLI (no Node)
- wasmCloud; Distributed WebAssembly platform (CNCF)
- WasmEdge; Lightweight WASM runtime for cloud/edge & AI (CNCF)
- Wasmer; WebAssembly runtime with a package registry
- Wasmtime; Bytecode Alliance WebAssembly runtime (WASI)
Apps & CMS9
- Backdrop CMS; Drupal 7 fork for small-to-medium sites
- Bedrock (Roots); Composer-managed WordPress boilerplate
- ClassicPress; WordPress fork without the block editor
- Framer; Design-first website builder with hosted CMS (cloud)
- Ghost; Modern publishing & newsletter platform
- Instatic; Self-hosted visual CMS with an AI page editor (open-source)
- Trellis (Roots); Ansible server provisioning for WordPress
- Webflow; Visual website builder & hosted CMS (cloud)
- WordPress Playground; WordPress running in WebAssembly \u{2014} no server needed
Web Servers6
- Angular CLI; Scaffold, serve & build Angular apps
- Apache Tomcat; Java servlet/JSP application server
- Caddy; Automatic-HTTPS web server / reverse proxy
- Laravel Herd; One-click PHP dev environment (Mac app)
- Microsoft IIS; Windows web server and application platform
- OpenLiteSpeed; High-performance web server with web admin UI
Run it from your Mac.
FrontierStack installs, monitors and secures services on this Mac and on linked servers.
Download FrontierStack