A workstation with the full LAMP stack installed, that is, having Apache web server, MySQL relational database management system, and PHP runtime installed over some Linux-based distribution. If the reader is capable enough, then any of these requirements can be swapped for different vendors, except PHP, which is quite obvious.

You have to use PHP Version 5.4 and higher, because it's a requirement for Yii 2, and generally, you don't have any reason to use previous versions anymore.

Even if you don't use a POSIX-compatible OS, such as any Linux-based distribution or Mac OS X, you should have a Bash-like shell, as all command-line examples in this book assume the availability of this shell.

An Internet connection is required to download many necessary libraries used throughout this book. Even if you don't update anything, you'll download approximately 320 MB of libraries, so mobile Internet probably will not cut it.