Docker-based development environments for macOS, Linux, and Windows

Last updated on

26 January 2024

Docker-based tools are great for local development environments because of the small footprint and fast start-up times. More open-source projects are packaging their stacks as Docker images to speed up installation and collaboration.

Advantages of a Docker-based local development environment

Simpler to install and update than manually installing separate tools.
Simple dependency management.
Less disk space required than a virtual machine development environment.
Read about Docker containers for more information.

Docker-based local development environments for Drupal

The four most popular solutions, with more than 500 stars in their GitHub repositories:

DDEV

DDEV is an open-source tool that makes it dead simple to get local PHP development environments up and running within minutes. Works with Linux, Mac OS, and Windows. Developed and maintained by long-time Drupal contributor Randy Fay (rfay) through support from several well-known and respected Drupal-focused companies. DDEV is recommended for local Drupal development.

Lando

Lando is for developers who want to quickly specify and painlessly spin up the services and tools needed to develop their projects. It's a free, open-source, cross-platform, local development environment and DevOps tool built on Docker container technology and developed by Tandem.

Lando Documentation.
Lando on GitHub.
For PHPUnit and Nightwatch testing, see Lando + Drupal Contributions.

Docker4Drupal

Docker4Drupal is a set of Docker containers optimized for Drupal. Use the docker-compose.yml file from the docker4drupal repository to spin up a local environment on Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows.

Docksal

Docksal is a tool for defining and managing development environments. It uses Docker to create fully containerized environments, along with VirtualBox to support macOS and Windows.