Multiple Website Environment: Virtual hosts vs All websites inside 'htdocs'

Question

I am using MAMP in my Mac for local website testing.

Now, I've always set up multiple websites in the same root folder: 'htdocs'. Ex: htdocs>project1; htdocs>project2. However I am reading about virtual hosts and how to use a different root for each website.

Is there any huge advantages of doing so apart from:

• having a different url - ex: www.localhost2.example? (if localhost2 name is possible)

• having a different database environment for each website? (although I typically use just one database per website and I don't mind having all databases in the same PHPMyAdmin)

What are the practical advantages?

Answer 1

It is a good idea for creating a test environment but it has pros and cons, If you're going to instantiate one vm per website then you will find resources problems when making them work all at once.

I usualy instantiate a virtual machine when a need to have a specific machine config for the web app (i.E. Linux specific software like WHMCS or so..), but for regular testing of websites I do deploy them on the localhost, they consume less resources that way.