If you already have this setup you can skip to the next section below. The first thing you need to do to get started is to download the docker container in your machine. Now that we went over some of the reasoning of why it’s beneficial to run Postgresql in a Mac computer lets go over how you can get it running on your system. The list above even though it’s not as exhaustive it includes some of the reasons of why I like to run Postgresql in a docker container on my Mac.

You are guaranteed version consistency in the future if something changes in postgres.

You can easily snapshot your container and go back in time if needed to debug some issue.

It’s easier to start/stop and completely turn off or relaunch the container if needed.

It’s easier to isolate it from the rest of your system applications.Any third party dependencies such as postgresql extensions can be turned only once in your docker container.Your pipeline integration later will be a breeze as you’d have everything ready to go and prebundled.You can keep a standard setup and configuration that’s consistent across the board.Since it’s a docker container you can take with you and use it wherever you want.So our list below will be using those two points of reference when comparing things. Offcourse the alternatives is running it natively in your machine which is beyond the scope of this article or running it on an external server and just interacting with it. To make this more specific I have assembled a list below. This is a very valid question and the answer has various reasons some of which may or may not apply to you directly. You may find yourself what is the advantage of running Postgresql inside a docker container. We will go point by point on getting you up and running in less than 5mins, you do not need to have any programming knowledge to use the tools we are going to be using here. Since it’s a docker container it simplifies the process of bundling it up too. I have used this setup successfully in various projects and it works very well and have saved me a ton of time getting a database server without altering anything on my host machine.

How To Invoke The Docker Postgres Container.

Run docker on mac