You can set up a complete infrastructure which perfectly mimics your production environment running load balances, cache servers, queue workers, and more. Once using Docker, you have access to countless images to create all sorts of development environments, running things beyond Apache, MySQL, and PHP. The reality is, Docker is a simple client install and then a couple commands from the command line. Most notably having a default client for most platforms, including macOS and Windows. In addition, Docker has made advancements since I tried over the years. In fairness, I tried using Docker multiple times before. And Docker can be used for so much more than local development on macOS.

Something I can use elsewhere or again, beyond my Mac. If I'm going to spend days learning something, I'd rather learn something which brings value beyond a single purpose. I don't want to waste anymore time on it. But it's happened to me enough times over multiple versions and multiple years. Yes yes, I know you don't have any problems. And when you upgrade macOS, you'll receive another error and the solutions before no longer work. But it's only a matter of time until you receive another obscure error and burn another day. But when it doesn't you're going to burn a day searching the web trying to figure out some obscure error message. This post will outline the process for a basic setup using Docker.īefore moving on to the actual implementation, let me address the two questions I still receive after all these years. Which 75% of is powered by PHP.įor those reasons, I am finally making the switch to using Docker for local development with Apache, MySQL, and PHP on macOS. In fact, Apple has added a warning about using the preinstalled PHP version and plans to no longer include it in future versions of macOS. However, it looks like macOS Big Sur will not upgrade PHP. I held hope the next version of macOS might adopt a modern version of PHP. The primary reason was the need for a newer version of PHP. It wasn't until installing macOS Catalina that I began to move away from the preinstalled development tools I had preached for so many years. I know, Docker, gross right? Suppress that reaction for a few paragraphs…įor the last 8 years I've held one of the top search results for Installing Apache, PHP, and MySQL on Mac OS X.

Use mysql on mac