Install Drupal using DDEV for local development

Introduction to DDEV

The Drupal community selected DDEV as the recommended local development environment in June 2024. DDEV is an open source Docker-based tool for creating local web development projects in minutes. Drupal is one of many projects that DDEV supports.

Install DDEV

These instructions link to the DDEV documentation for setting up DDEV for working with Drupal.

1. Check requirements
   Confirm that your system meets the requirements listed in the DDEV system requirements.

2. Install Docker
   Go to Docker installation, select your environment, and follow the instructions. If installing DDEV on Docker Engine on WSL2 on Windows, the DDEV installation script will handle Docker installation.

3. Install DDEV
   Go to DDEV installation, select your environment, and follow the instructions.

Install Drupal

Drupal can be downloaded using Composer or with a Git clone of Drupal core. Downloading with Composer is the recommended method for most projects. Using a Git clone is typically used for contributing to Drupal core.

Option 1. Using Composer

This option uses Composer, PHP's dependency manager, to install Drupal for local development.

Go to the Drupal section of the DDEV CMS Quickstarts, choose a version of Drupal, and follow the instructions.

Congratulations! If all went well, Drupal is now installed and open in your default browser. It will also install Drush, the command line shell for working with Drupal.

Option 2. Using Git with clone

This option is for developing Drupal core, for example, working on Drupal core issues.

1. git clone the latest Drupal development version by following the Drupal core version control instructions.

2. Change to the Drupal directory:

   cd drupal

3. Grep for the number of the latest Drupal development version:

   grep 'const VERSION' core/lib/Drupal.php

   ...should return, for example, const VERSION = '12.0-dev';

   Or check the last tab of the DDEV CMS Quickstart for Drupal, for example, "Drupal 12 (HEAD)".

4. Create the DDEV project:

   ddev config --project-type drupalN

   where N is the version of Drupal determined in #3.

5. Start the project:

   ddev start

6. Get the external dependencies for Drupal core:

   ddev composer install

7. Install Drush, the command line tool for working with Drupal:

   ddev composer require drush/drush

8. Install Drupal using Drush:

   ddev drush site:install -y

9. Launch your new Drupal site in your default browser:

   ddev launch

   ... or automatically log into the admin account:

   ddev launch $(ddev drush uli)

Congratulations! If all went well, the latest snapshot of Drupal's development version (the main branch) is now installed and open in your default browser. You can now test Drupal patches and merge requests.

Info and support

See Getting Started with DDEV for Drupal Development (January 2026) for a introduction, and the DDEV blog for regular updates.

The DDEV Foundation offers various support channels. The Drupal Slack includes the #ddev and the #ddev-for-core-dev channels.