{"id":154136,"date":"2024-10-18T11:51:44","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T16:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/?p=154136"},"modified":"2025-05-14T13:33:40","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T18:33:40","slug":"reflecting-on-eight-years-of-local","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/case-studies\/reflecting-on-eight-years-of-local\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting on Eight Years of Local"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In honor of Local’s eighth anniversary and the recent release of Local v9.1.0<\/a>, I\u2019d like to reflect on how the tool has grown and changed alongside the WordPress community throughout the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can honestly say that I love and believe in Local more than ever. I\u2019ve seen it change so much over the years, and I\u2019m proud to have supported the product as it\u2019s grown into a tool with more than 1.7 million downloads and 100,000 recurring monthly users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those unfamiliar, Local<\/a> is the world\u2019s leading local development tool for WordPress sites. It offers a free, simple way to build sites on your local machine\u2014no matter who you are, where you host, or what you\u2019re building. Local’s mission has always been to empower all WordPress developers with advanced workflow features.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I started at Flywheel<\/a> more than seven years ago, Local had just become part of the Flywheel brand, and I\u2019ve been supporting it in various ways since. At the time, our teams were thrilled to acquire this incredible tool called Pressmatic (more on that in a moment). Since then, it\u2019s grown and improved developers’ workflows worldwide. (Fun fact: More than 80% of Local users are outside of the U.S.!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we celebrate Local’s eighth year, read on for a closer look at the innovations and investments that have made it one of the most beloved free tools in the WordPress community!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A brief history of Local<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re familiar with the WordPress ecosystem circa 2016, you may remember Pressmatic, the popular brainchild of Clay Griffiths<\/a>. Pressmatic revolutionized local website development with a simple and straightforward way to spin up WordPress sites. It quickly grew in popularity, to the point that Flywheel purchased it in December 2016<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rebranded as Local by Flywheel, the tool continued to grow, combining its original strengths with Flywheel’s design-first mindset. Over the following years, we doubled down on community-requested features and expanded Local\u2019s offerings to include Local Pro and Local for Teams, supporting different developer workflows. We also created ways to give back to the WordPress community through open-source Add-on<\/a> creation and developer programs like Local Lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Flywheel and Local were acquired by WP Engine in June 2019<\/a>, we took a step back to reexamine the product\u2019s vision and mission and brought all functionality<\/a> into the free version of Local, eliminating paid tiers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our goal was always to make it as easy as possible for everyone to work with WordPress: a place to learn, grow, share, and build the WordPress ecosystem! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Local can do many things, here are a few key features we\u2019ve added over the years that I\u2019d be remiss not to mention! <\/p>\n\n\n\n