Below are some tools that allow users to exploit the power and reliability of the Apple macOS platform, and still have the familiar *NIX-type experience.
macOS Server by Apple is available in the App Store for $19.99 and installs as an app and service within macOS. It includes a web server among other utilities.
MAMP / MAMP Pro is similar to Linux LAMP. “MAMP” stands for Macintosh, Apache, MySQL and PHP. MAMP can be installed on macOS 10.10 or greater and includes a friendly user interface.
MACPorts is a more advanced method that provides a command-line method of installing software packages under BSD to access thousands of ports and greatly simplifies compiling and installing open-source software on your Mac.
HomeBrew is the latest BSD/*NIX package manager for macOS, and is a great alternative to MACPorts.
The Mac is a powerful Intel-based hardware platform that can run any OS – not just macOS. MacStadium offers VMware ESXi as a means to install all variants of Linux as virtual machines on a hosted Mac. This includes generic distributions like Debian, Ubuntu, and CentOS, as well as packaged distributions that include software like cPanel and Plesk.