Docker Compose and WordPress

Use WordPress locally with Docker using Docker compose

Contents

• A Dockerfile for extending a base image and using a custom Docker image with an automated build on Docker Hub
• PHP 8.3
• Custom domain and HTTPS support. So you can use for example https://myapp.local
• Custom nginx config in ./nginx
• Custom PHP php.ini config in ./config
• Volumes for nginx, wordpress and mariadb
• Composer - dependency manager for PHP
• Bedrock - modern development tools, easier configuration, and an improved secured folder structure for WordPress
• WP-CLI - WP-CLI is the command-line interface for WordPress.
• Mailpit - An email testing tool for developers. Catches all outgoing email and lets you view it in a web UI at http://127.0.0.1:8025.
• PhpMyAdmin - free and open source administration tool for MySQL and MariaDB
  • PhpMyAdmin config in ./config
• CLI script to create a SSL certificate using mkcert

Versions

Component	Version
PHP	8.3 (PHP-FPM, via the custom base image)
nginx	1.27-alpine
MariaDB	11.4 LTS
phpMyAdmin	5.2
Mailpit	latest (axllent/mailpit)
Composer	latest
WP-CLI	latest
WordPress	managed via Composer/Bedrock (roots/wordpress)

The custom base image is multi-arch (linux/amd64 + linux/arm64), so it runs natively on both Intel and Apple Silicon.

Instructions and help

See the new Wiki

Security

Found a security issue? Please don't open a public issue — see SECURITY.md for how to report it privately. Note that this is a local development environment and is not intended to be exposed to the public internet or used in production as-is.

Changelog

2026-07-24

• Modernized the stack: dropped the obsolete Compose version key, pinned image tags, upgraded MariaDB 10.7 → 11.4 LTS, nginx → 1.27-alpine, and phpMyAdmin → 5.2.
• Replaced the archived MailHog with the maintained Mailpit (same 8025/1025 ports).
• Hardened nginx: TLS 1.2/1.3 only (dropped TLSv1/1.1), modern ciphers, http2 on; directive, and added security headers.
• Modernized CI: actions/checkout@v4, a PHP 8.1–8.3 matrix, Composer caching, composer validate, and runs on pull requests.
• Added SECURITY.md, CLAUDE.md, and an expanded dependabot.yml (Composer, Docker, GitHub Actions, npm).
• Upgraded PHP 8.1 → 8.3 via a rebuilt, multi-arch base image (linux/amd64 + linux/arm64), which runs natively on Apple Silicon (fixes the ARM emulation issue).
• Bumped composer/installers to v2 (removes the PHP 8.1 deprecation notice).

2024-05-28

• Update Composer to use PHP 8.1
• Added a GitHub Wiki for instructions

2022-05-28

• Use PHP 8.1 Dockerfile is updated.

2022-05-28

• Use php:8.0-fpm-alpine as the base image on the image in Dockerfile

2022-05-28

• Updated the Docker image to use PHP 8

2021-08-04

• Updated to WordPress 5.8.0

2021-03-16

• Changed root .env-example to .env.example to match the git ignore patterns. Thanks @scottnunemacher

2021-03-05

• Clarify steps in the readme

2021-03-02

• Fixed a misstake so instead of ./src/.env-example, it should be ./src/.env.example.
• Redirect HTTP to HTTPS. Thanks @humblecoder

2021-01-02

• Use NGINX_ENVSUBST_TEMPLATE_SUFFIX. Use a template and better substution of ENV variables in nginx config.

2020-10-04

• Added mariadb-client (Solves #54)

2020-09-15

• Updated Bedrock. Update WordPress to 5.5.1 and other composer updates.

2020-07-12

• Added Mailhog. Thanks @mortensassi

2020-05-03

• Added nginx gzip compression

2020-04-19

• Added Windows support for creating SSH cert, trusting it and setting up the host file entry. Thanks to @styssi

2020-04-12

• Remove port number from DB_HOST. Generated database connection error in macOS Catalina. Thanks to @nirvanadev
• Add missing ENV variable from mariadb Thanks to @vonwa

2020-03-26

• Added phpMyAdmin config.Thanks to @titoffanton

2020-02-06

• Readme improvements. Explain /etc/hosts better

2020-01-30

• Use Entrypoint command in Docker Compose to replace the domain name in the nginx config. Removing the need to manually edit the domain name in the nginx conf. Now using the .env value DOMAIN
• Added APP_NAME in .env-example Thanks to @Dave3o3

2020-01-11

• Added .env support for specifying your own app name, domain etc in Docker and cli scripts.
• Added phpMyAdmin. Visit http://127.0.0.1:8080/

2019-08-02

• Added Linux support. Thanks to @faysal-ishtiaq.