Yes, you can install WordPress to your local machine. Give this a read for full instructions on how to do it.
You can use BitNami https://bitnami.com/ for desktop development to experiment WordPress although the different between the live host and the localhost in your computers is that using inexpensive hosting
you can have live experiment on a server for about $5 a month for hosting which you can see the live experiment results with different devices but with localhost you can’t.
Thundersax, Absolutely. You can install in your personal computer, test it, add posts, pages, etc and then once you are happy with it, you can just export all content from it to a file.
The steps to do this are:
1- Login to your local WordPress site
2- Go to Tools -> Export
3- Select all the content you want to export
4- Login to the WordPress installation in a server/hosting
5- Go to Tools -> Import
6- Select WordPress as the type of import
7- Select file you previously exported and click on Upload and import
I also agree with wadigraphic – if you already have a hosting account somewhere, you should be able to just install WordPress there and the cost shouldn’t be too high.
Good luck!
