LAMP is an archetypal model of web service stacks, named as an acronym of the names of its original four open-source components: the Linux operating system, the Apache HTTP Server, the MySQL relational database management system (RDBMS), and the PHP programming language. The LAMP components are largely interchangeable and not limited to the original selection. As a solution stack, LAMP is suitable for building dynamic web sites and web applications.
Since its creation, the LAMP model has been adapted to other componentry, though typically consisting of free and open-source software. For example, an equivalent installation on the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems is known as WAMP.
Originally popularized from the phrase "Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP", the acronym "LAMP" now refers to a generic software stack model. The modularity of a LAMP stack may vary, but this particular software combination has become popular because it is entirely free and open-source software. This means that each component can be interchanged and adapted without overt vendor lock-in, and that the complete software stack is available free of cost. The components of the LAMP stack are present in the software repositories of most Linux distributions, providing a LAMP stack with some automation.
The LAMP bundle can be combined with many other free and open-source software packages, such as the following:
As another example, the software which and other projects use for their is a customized LAMP stack with additions such as Linux Virtual Server (LVS) for load balancing and Ceph and Swift for distributed object storages.