LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl/Python) is an acronym denoting one of the most common software stacks for many of the web's most popular applications. However, LAMP now refers to a generic software stack model and its components are largely interchangeable. Each letter in the acronym stands for one of its four open-source building blocks: Linux for the operating system Apache HTTP Server MySQL for the relational database management system PHP, Perl, or Python programming language The components of the LAMP stack are present in the software repositories of most Linux distributions.Now e-commerce, e-learning, SAAS, real estate, infotainment, and social media applications are developed using LAMP stack development processes. History The acronym LAMP was coined by Michael Kunze in the December 1998 issue of Computertechnik, a German computing magazine, as he demonstrated that a bundle of free and open-source software "could be a feasible alternative to expensive commercial packages". Since then, O'Reilly Media and MySQL teamed up to popularize the acronym and evangelize its use. The term and the concept became popular because it was one of the first open-source software stacks for the web, with sufficient capabilities to host a variety of web frameworks, such as Joomla, WordPress and Drupal. Variants The LAMP model has been adapted to other componentry, though typically consisting of free and open-source software. With the growing use of the archetypal LAMP, variations and retronyms appeared for other combinations of operating system, web server, database, and software language. For example, an equivalent installation on the Microsoft Windows operating system family is known as WAMP. An alternative running IIS in place of Apache is called WIMP. Variants involving other operating systems include MAMP (macOS), SAMP (Solaris), FAMP (FreeBSD), iAMP (IBM i) and XAMPP (cross-platform). The web server or database management system also varies. LEMP is a version where Apache has been replaced with the more lightweight web server Nginx. A version where MySQL has been replaced by PostgreSQL is called LAPP, or sometimes by keeping the original acronym, LAMP (Linux / Apache / Middleware (Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby) / PostgreSQL). The LAMP bundle can be combined with many other free and open-source software packages, including: netsniff-ng for security testing and hardening Snort, an intrusion detection (IDS) and intrusion prevention (IPS) system RRDtool for diagrams Nagios, Collectd or Cacti, for monitoring. As another example, the software which Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects use for their underlying infrastructure