Title: VIP Local Development Environment limitations
Author: WordPress VIP Documentation
Published: June 5, 2024
Last modified: October 21, 2025

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 1. [VIP Local Development Environment](https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-local-development-environment/)
 2. VIP Local Development Environment limitations

#  VIP Local Development Environment limitations

Some features are not yet available in the local environment or have default behaviors
that differ from a VIP Platform environment.

 * The [VIP File System](https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-file-system/) and [Page cache](https://docs.wpvip.com/caching/page-cache/)
   services are not built in. When developing features for an application that rely
   on these services, it is strongly recommended to stage changes and perform tests
   on a non-production VIP Platform environment.
 * By default, the [NGINX HTTP Concat](https://github.com/Automattic/nginx-http-concat)
   plugin that handles file concatenation and minification is disabled on a VIP 
   Local Development Environment but [can be optionally code-enabled](https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-go-mu-plugins/file-concatenation-and-minification/#4-enable-for-vip-local-development-environment).

**Note**

The [VIP Local Development Environment](https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-local-development-environment/)
is optimized for building features, testing plugin and software updates, and fixing
bugs during early development. It is not intended to fully replicate the architecture,
infrastructure, or performance of environments on the VIP Platform.

Performance testing for application code should be conducted on a non-production
[VIP Platform environment](https://docs.wpvip.com/infrastructure/environments/) 
rather than on a VIP Local Development Environment. A non-production environment
shares the same architecture as production, so testing—including [load tests](https://docs.wpvip.com/performance/load-testing/)—
on non-production will provide a more accurate indication of code performance.

Testing in a non-production environment helps to expose potential performance issues
earlier and increase confidence that deployments to production will behave as expected.

Last updated: October 21, 2025