Laradock vs Laravel Sail

What is Laravel Sail?

Laravel Sail is Laravel's own, official command-line interface for running a Laravel application in Docker. It ships automatically with every new Laravel project: no separate install, just a sail command and a small docker-compose.yml file that Laravel generates for you, covering PHP, a database, and a handful of common services.

It is intentionally minimal and Laravel-specific. This page compares it to Laradock, a framework-agnostic alternative with 100+ pre-configured services instead of Sail's shorter list, used directly through plain docker compose rather than a wrapper command.

Sail is Laravel's official Docker scaffold: small, clean, Laravel-only. Laradock is the framework-agnostic catalog: 100+ services behind the same plain Docker workflow. This page runs the same app on both.

TL;DR: pick Sail for a vanilla Laravel app with vanilla needs; it is official and it is enough. Pick Laradock the day your stack outgrows Sail's service list, you run more than Laravel, or you would rather use docker compose directly than through a wrapper script.

Setting up with Sail

For a brand-new app, one command scaffolds everything:

curl -s "https://laravel.build/my-app?with=mysql,redis" | bash
cd my-app && ./vendor/bin/sail up -d

For an existing app: composer require laravel/sail --dev, then php artisan sail:install and pick your services from the menu (MySQL, Postgres, Redis, Meilisearch, Mailpit, Selenium, and a few more).

Day to day, everything goes through the wrapper: sail up, sail artisan migrate, sail composer require, sail test.

Change PHP version: edit compose.yaml, point the build context at another runtime (./vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/8.3), change the image name to match, then sail build --no-cache.

The same thing with Laradock

cd my-app
git clone https://github.com/laradock/laradock.git
cd laradock && cp .env.example .env
docker compose up -d nginx mysql redis workspace
docker compose exec workspace bash   # artisan, composer, npm all live here

Or let the optional CLI do the choosing: ./laradock setup detects Laravel and pre-selects nginx/mysql/redis, exactly like sail:install's menu, then shows every real command it runs.

Day to day you use Docker directly: docker compose exec workspace php artisan migrate, docker compose logs -f nginx, docker compose stop.

Change PHP version: PHP_VERSION=8.3 in .env, then docker compose build php-fpm workspace. Runs anything from PHP 5.6 to 8.5, which Sail does not attempt (great for legacy projects).

Side by side

	Laravel Sail	Laradock
Ships with	Laravel itself (official)	git clone
Services	~10 (chosen at install)	100+ (start any, any time)
Frameworks	Laravel only	Any PHP project
Commands	sail * wrapper	standard docker compose *
Web server	Built-in PHP server (artisan serve) by default	Real NGINX / Apache / Caddy, production-style
PHP versions	8.0 - 8.4 runtimes	5.6 - 8.5
Adding a service later	Only if Sail supports it (else hand-edit compose.yaml)	docker compose up -d {service}
Dev shell	none (commands via sail)	workspace container with Composer, Node, git, and dozens of tools
Config	one compose.yaml in your repo	per-service folders + one .env

Choose Sail if...

• Your app is pure Laravel and your stack is inside Sail's menu.
• You value "official" and minimal above everything else.
• Your team already knows the sail command by heart.

Choose Laradock if...

• You need anything beyond Sail's list: RabbitMQ, Kafka, Elasticsearch clusters, ClickHouse, vector DBs, local LLMs, monitoring; with Laradock each one is a single up command away.
• You also work on non-Laravel projects and want one environment for all of them.
• You want a production-style web server (NGINX/Apache/Caddy) instead of artisan serve in a container.
• You maintain legacy apps on PHP 5.6/7.x that Sail cannot run.
• You prefer no wrapper: what you learn is plain Docker Compose.

Already on Sail? The service names even match

Sail and Laradock both call the containers mysql and redis, so your app's .env barely changes.

1. Export your database while Sail still runs: ./vendor/bin/sail exec mysql mysqldump -uroot -ppassword laravel > backup.sql (adjust db name/creds to your .env).
2. Stop Sail: ./vendor/bin/sail down
3. Add Laradock inside your project: git clone https://github.com/laradock/laradock.git && cd laradock && cp .env.example .env
4. Start your stack: docker compose up -d nginx mysql redis workspace
5. Import the database: docker compose exec -T mysql mysql -uroot -proot default < ../backup.sql
6. Update your app's .env: DB_HOST=mysql and REDIS_HOST=redis stay the same; change DB_DATABASE/DB_USERNAME/DB_PASSWORD to Laradock's (in mysql/defaults.env) or set yours in Laradock's .env.
7. Optional cleanup once you are settled: composer remove laravel/sail --dev and delete Sail's compose.yaml.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Laravel Sail free?

Yes. Sail ships as a Composer dev-dependency with every new Laravel install and is fully free and open-source (MIT license), maintained by the Laravel team.

Does Sail only work with Laravel?

Yes, Sail is built specifically for Laravel applications; it is not a general-purpose PHP Docker tool. For non-Laravel PHP projects (Symfony, WordPress, plain PHP), you need something framework-agnostic like Laradock.

What services does Sail support?

Sail's installer offers a curated list including MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, Redis, Valkey, Memcached, Meilisearch, Typesense, MinIO, Mailpit, RabbitMQ, and Selenium, roughly 15 services, selected at install time via sail:install or added later with sail:add.

Can I add a service to Sail after installing?

Yes, run php artisan sail:add and pick additional services from the same menu sail:install uses; it updates your compose.yaml and re-runs the environment wiring.

Is Sail slow on macOS or Windows?

It can be: Sail's file-sharing performance depends entirely on Docker Desktop's bind-mount speed, a known pain point for vendor/-heavy PHP projects. Recent Docker Desktop VirtioFS improvements help significantly; this is a Docker Desktop limitation, not specific to Sail or Laradock.

See the full landscape, including DDEV, Herd, Lando and XAMPP: Laradock vs Others. Ready to try it? Getting Started takes about five minutes.