MAMP/LAMP native or virtual (Virtualbox/VMware)?

Question

What is your preferred development environment ?

Native

• WAMP/MAMP/LAMP (Apache, MySQL, PHP) on Windows/MacOS/Linux
• Working copy local, SVN/CVS on server
• IDE/Editor on the same system (Eclipse, Aptana, Zend...)

Virtual/Native (Server on VM)

• LAMP on VirtualBox/VMware
• working copy in the VM
• IDE/Editor on host, access to the VM with Samba, FTP, SFTP (eventually mapping with tools like WebDrive)

Virtual (VM)

• Complete development environment running in a VM (server, tools, IDE)
• Host is only used for special tools not available on the OS running in the VM

All have pros and cons.

Answer 1

With BitNami stacks you can run the exact same XAMP environment locally or remotely (and make sure everybody on your team is running the exact same stack). It is free and works on Windows, Linux, Mac.