This is super easy to do on the Mac. Starting the server is as easy as putting a check in a checkbox. The other great thing about this is that for low use websites, any machine that will run leopard that we cover on this site will work great for this. Obviously if your site is going to get a lot of traffic then you are going to want to juice up your machine or get as fast of a machine as you can afford, but in reality, the biggest limiting factor is going to be your internet connection from your internet service provider.

   When you follow the tutorial and turn on the webserver it will serve up any html files you want. If you add PHP and MySQL into the mix, you will have a very powerful webserver, and it is all free. PHP is a very common programming language used for websites. The great news is that this is already installed on your computer, we just have to enable it. MySQL is a database very commonly used for websites and web content also. This is not installed with the operating system, but it is easy to install. With these three things installed and enabled, you will have a great webserver sitting there waiting for your commands. The next step would be to make a website. All of these things are covered in tutorials.

     Use these links for what you will need.