Originally Posted by EviLGuY

I dont see why you'd want to reinvent the wheel when there are a number of decent solutions very reasonably priced.

As for the server question. Why don't you find and older pc and put some version of linux on it, and then its a simple matter to get php / mysql / apache setup on it and you are good to go to test just about anything you want. Plus it'll be a bit of a learning experience and you'll feel a lot more comfortable logging into a remote box with SSH.