Docker4Drupal vs Testcontainers Desktop

Docker4Drupal is a local Drupal environment built from Docker images and a preconfigured Compose setup. It lists images for Drupal CMS 2 and vanilla Drupal 11 and 10, with a stack that includes Nginx, Apache, PHP, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Valkey, Redis, Memcached, Varnish, Node.js, Solr and OpenSearch. Optional tools include Mailpit, Gotenberg, Webgrind, Xhprof viewer, Adminer, phpMyAdmin, Selenium Chrome and Traefik. You can use the bundled Drupal setup or mount an existing codebase. Traefik supports routing multiple projects through a shared port or separate ports; Mailpit catches outbound email by default, and OpenSMTPD can be enabled for delivery. Documentation covers Xdebug for web and command-line debugging and IDE configuration such as PHPStorm. Docker is required, with Docker Compose also required on Linux. Database volumes persist by default, with bind mounts recommended when data should stay attached across restarts. It is free at free under the MIT license, for local development; the project directs server deployment users to Wodby’s Drupal stack.

Testcontainers Desktop is a companion app for the open source Testcontainers libraries, for local development and testing with real dependencies. The closed-source app runs in the system tray and lets users switch between local container runtimes, including Podman and Colima. It can also run containers through Testcontainers Cloud on demand without local resources or a local Docker daemon. Users can expose services on fixed ports for debugging tools, inspect container logs, and open a shell for a configured service. A beta freeze option can stop containers from shutting down after tests, while session tracking feeds collaborative dashboards with desktop and CI data from an organization. More than 15 example service configurations include PostgreSQL and Kafka. The embedded runtime is beta and requires macOS 11 or later. A Docker account is required to sign in. The free plan includes 300 minutes of cloud runtime per month; Turbo mode requires a paid account.