Installation

Why Kythia?

Kythia Workspace is a blazing fast, native development environment for Windows. It provides everything that you need to get started with local development. It ships with PHP, Node.js, Nginx, MySQL, Redis, and much more.

You can manage all your sites, databases, and runtimes effortlessly from one beautiful UI, without the heavy footprint of VMs or WSL overhead.

How does it compare?

Feature	Kythia	Laragon	XAMPP	Herd (Windows)	Docker
Native Speed (No VM/WSL)	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌ (WSL2 overhead)
RAM Footprint	🍃 Ultra-light (Rust)	🪶 Light	🐢 Heavy	🪶 Light	🐳 Eats 4GB+ (Vmmem)
1-Click Multi PHP	✅	⚠️ (Manual setup)	❌	✅	✅
Node.js, Bun, Python, Go	✅	❌	❌	⚠️ (Pro only)	✅
Web Servers	✅ (7+ options)	⚠️ (Apache, Nginx)	❌ (Apache)	❌ (Nginx)	✅
Databases	✅ (8+ options)	⚠️ (MySQL, Redis)	❌ (MariaDB)	❌	✅
Built-in S3 / Object Storage	✅ (MinIO)	❌	❌	❌	⚠️ (Manual setup)
Built-in Mail Testing	✅ (Mailpit)	⚠️ (Old MailCatcher)	❌	✅	❌ (Manual setup)
Auto `.test` Domains	✅	✅	❌	✅	❌
Zero Registry Clutter	✅ (Portable path)	⚠️	❌	❌	❌
Modern Dark UI	✅	❌	❌	❌	✅

Installation

System Requirements

OS: Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit)
RAM: 100MB minimum (Kythia itself uses very little memory)
Disk: ~50MB for the installer; additional space depends on the services you install

Installing via MSI

Download the .msi installer
Run it and follow the setup wizard
Kythia will appear in your Start Menu and System Tray

First launch

On first launch, Kythia will:

Set up the installation directory at C:\kythia\
Register itself in the system tray
Be ready to download and install your first service

Uninstall

To uninstall Kythia, use Settings > Add or Remove Programs on Windows and find Kythia Workspace.

The C:\kythia\bin\ directory with all downloaded services will remain on disk — delete it manually if you want a complete removal.