Local Preview

OwnShip is a single PHP file, so any local PHP server can preview your site before you upload it. If you already run a local dev environment, point it at your content folder and you're done. If you don't, OwnShip bundles two zero-setup scripts for the common case.

The bundled scripts

Small scripts that start PHP's built-in server and open your browser — nothing to install beyond PHP itself.

OwnShipPreview.bat — Windows

Double-click or run from any directory. Opens http://localhost:8080 automatically.

OwnShipPreview.sh — bash / WSL

bash OwnShipPreview.sh

Run from your content directory. Opens http://localhost:8080 automatically.

Both need PHP installed and on your PATH. To check:

php --version

If you develop with OwnShip you almost certainly already have it.

Using a server you already run

Any of these previews an OwnShip site just as well — there is nothing OwnShip-specific to configure. Point the server at the folder that holds index.php and your content:

• Laravel Herd — a free, one-click PHP environment for macOS and Windows. Park or link your site folder and Herd serves it at a .test address (e.g. http://mysite.test). Runs nginx.
• XAMPP / MAMP / WampServer — the classic Apache + PHP bundles. Drop your folder into the web root (htdocs, www) and browse http://localhost/yourfolder. These run Apache.
• Plain php -S — from your content folder: php -S localhost:8000. This is exactly what the bundled scripts do for you.

Clean URLs, locally

The one thing that differs between local servers is whether they read .htaccess, which is what powers clean URLs:

• PHP's built-in server (the bundled scripts) and Herd (nginx) ignore .htaccess. Set clean_urls = false in _site.ini for local preview, or just live with ?page=… addresses while you work — clean URLs still work once the site is on an Apache/LiteSpeed host. The bundled scripts print this reminder.
• Apache-based stacks (XAMPP, MAMP, WampServer) read .htaccess (given AllowOverride), so they are the way to test clean_urls locally before uploading.

Everything except clean URLs previews identically on any of them — it's the same index.php rendering the same content.

Download

Both scripts are available from the Downloads section of the OwnShip website.