I use XAMPP every day, and its control panel kept costing me time: MySQL dying with “shutdown unexpectedly” and corrupted tables because Stop kills the process, no way to change PHP versions, and editing httpd-vhosts.conf and the hosts file by hand for every project.

So I built a replacement that keeps the same layout:

• Stops MySQL/MariaDB with a clean shutdown instead of killing it
• Installs and switches between several PHP and MariaDB versions (rolls back if something breaks)
• Sets up local sites like https://myproject.test with a trusted certificate in one click
• Edits php.ini settings and extensions from one window
• Tells you why Apache won’t start (runs httpd -t first) and who holds port 80
• Tray icon, light and dark theme

It’s a single signed exe, MIT licensed, built with .NET 10 and Avalonia. Unofficial, not affiliated with Apache Friends.

https://github.com/ClearanceClarence-Software/Modern-XAMPP-Control-Panel

Feedback and bug reports welcome, especially from people with older XAMPP installs.