I've been using XAMPP on Windows (which I'm forced to use at work) for a few years. I write a lot of custom PHP stuff to help me with my day job, and I also like to test functions or classes I write before I push it out to production. ApacheFriends XAMPP is an easy way to get a basic Apache installation up and running with some of the most popular add-ons including PHP and MySQL. It installs in OS X and many Linux distributions as well.While nothing can replace a streamlined, custom-compiled AMP Stack set up just the way you need it, XAMPP affords busy sysadmins (and web developers that don't want to be sysadmins!) the ability to get a functional web dev environment up and running with ease.
Go ahead, give XAMPP a shot!