Sites that behave like production
Every project gets a real hostname — acme-shop.test, not localhost/acme-shop — with its own document root, aliases and settings. Kiln writes the hosts entries for you in a single step.
- Apache and nginx at the same time. Both servers run on ports 80 and 443 side by side. Choose per site, and keep ports out of the URLs your CMS stores.
- Front-controller presets for WordPress, Laravel and Symfony, so pretty permalinks work on either server.
- Live logs per site — error and access tabs that update as requests come in.
- Server config without the hunting. Tune Apache and nginx from the app, toggle modules, and add global or per-site directives.
Any PHP, per site
Install the PHP versions you need and give each site its own. They all run at once, so a legacy client on 7.4 and a fresh build on 8.5 can sit side by side.
- Windows: PHP 7.0 through 8.5, including older releases for legacy work.
- Apple Silicon Macs: PHP 7.4 through 8.5. Intel Macs: PHP 8.1 through 8.5.
- Per-version extension toggles and a full
php.inieditor.
Trusted HTTPS, automatically
Kiln runs a local certificate authority and installs it where your browsers look, then issues a certificate for every site — including its aliases. Certificates renew themselves before they expire and whenever a site’s names change. No warnings, no click-through.
MariaDB and phpMyAdmin
- Create and drop databases, manage the root password and edit server options from the app.
- Each site gets its own database user, provisioned automatically.
- phpMyAdmin installs on demand.
- Pro: sync databases with your remote hosts.
Mail that never leaves your machine
A built-in mail catcher receives everything your sites send — on Windows and macOS — and shows it in a proper inbox with an unread badge. It accepts any SMTP login, so sites configured for a real mail server work unchanged, and it only listens on your own computer.
Command-line tools, scoped to the site
Composer and WP-CLI are built in. Open a terminal from any site and php, composer, wp and mysql are the exact versions that site uses — without touching your system PATH.
One-click CMS installs PRO
WordPress, MODX (3.x and 2.x), Joomla and Grav. Pick a version from the official release feed and Kiln downloads it, creates the database and user, and opens the web installer with the connection details on screen.
Sync and deploy
- Push or pull files over SFTP, FTP, FTPS or SSH, with a preview of every change before it runs.
- Saved transfer profiles, exclude patterns, size and type filters, and optional removal of orphaned files.
- Credentials encrypted at rest; SSH host keys pinned on first connect.
- MODX sites are re-configured for your machine after a pull.
A design studio for your theme
Generate and lock palettes, check every colour pair for contrast, choose self-hosted web fonts, and tune shape, motion, breakpoints and type. Preview it live in light and dark, add from a library of front-end add-ons, and start from theme scaffolds for WordPress, MODX, Joomla and Grav. Frameworks: Bootstrap, Tailwind CSS, Bulma, UIkit and Pico CSS. Pro builds the finished theme into your site.
Test on real devices
Your sites can be reached from phones and tablets on the same Wi-Fi network, using your computer’s network address.
Move sites in one file
Export a site to a .kiln file — optionally with a zip of its files and a full database dump — or export every site at once. Import on any machine running Kiln.
A clean, self-contained install
- The setup check runs on first launch and offers a Fix button for anything amiss.
- Runtimes, configs, certificates and logs live in one data folder.
- Start, stop and monitor everything from the system tray or menu bar.
- Uninstall from Settings removes the certificate authority, hosts entries and helpers Kiln added — and the data folder, if you choose.