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26 tools, one local development environment
One tool with no DevOps overhead so you can code, test, and ship faster.
Most frameworks and CMS’s today come with their own recommended local development environments, each crafted with care to meet specific needs. But the moment you switch to a different stack, you’re stuck learning yet another environment, complete with its own quirks, limitations, and often freemium restrictions.
That’s where DDEV rocks, and really stands out. It’s a local development tool that lets you quickly spin up a local version of 26 different frameworks and CMS’s. Built in Go, it runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, so you can set it up once and share it anywhere.
Is this a PHP-only tool?
By looking at ddev.com, you might get that impression. PHP is a large community within DDEV. However, the project has grown, and with it, the variety of ways and communities that use it. ddev.com is built with AstroJs and the GitHub repo includes an example of using DDEV with it. It gives you one of the closest local development experiences to what’s needed in a real production environment for any type of app.
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How many local environment tools are you using?
If you are developing in Laravel, you might be using Laravel Herd. However, once you switch to another language or framework, you likely find yourself starting from scratch. With DDEV, you could easily move from an AstroJS, WordPress, React, Drupal, 11ty, or Magento website, all with a similar Docker setup behind the scenes. It’s a Docker setup you probably won’t need to touch unless you’re working on advanced configurations.
What about other tools?
Other tools in this space include Lando, which acts more like a Docker orchestrator. It closely follows the Docker philosophy by spinning up one container per image. This offers flexibility with a wide range of Docker images, but it also introduces limitations. For example, running multiple databases in a single container or supporting certain advanced features that might require a tailored Docker image and tooling around them. Lando works well for general use cases, but it may fall short when more complex setups are needed.
What makes DDEV different?
From my perspective, DDEV functions more like a set of lightweight virtual machines, each running in its own dedicated Docker container. It includes a router, an SSH agent for sharing credentials, a web server, and a database container. By working with a focused subset of images, DDEV can apply predefined settings that help you get started faster.
Tools like npm, yarn, and composer are included out of the box, along with services such as mail and Traefik. Most configurations are ready to go; you might need to adjust a few ports for features like Hot Module Reloading (HMR), but those are easy to update in the config.yaml file.
Ship more, worry less
Overall, DDEV is designed to boost your productivity. It does not slow you down with Docker or DevOps-specific setup when your main focus is shipping software. You can dig deeper, look under the hood, and customize things if needed, but most of the time, DDEV stays out of your way.
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No freemium
Other local development environments leave certain settings for the professional, paid subscriptions. You might pay premiums for items such as dumps, mail, logs, services, xDebug, and others. Not DDEV, it includes all those tools out of the box.
Check it out
Even after all that, you might still ask, “What about this service?” DDEV has you covered. Its growing collection of addons extends core functionality with extra tools and Docker containers, some of which eventually make it into DDEV itself.
Once you’ve explored it and found it valuable, consider giving back. Like many open source projects, DDEV thrives when the people who benefit most from the project, contribute time, funding, or expertise back to the community to help it grow.
Get started: Install and start using DDEV
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