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Metabase

What is Metabase?​

Metabase is an open-source business intelligence tool: connect it to a database, and non-technical users can build charts and dashboards without writing SQL (though you still can, if you want to). Laradock runs it from the official metabase/metabase:latest image.

Start Metabase​

docker compose up -d metabase

Stop Metabase​

docker compose stop metabase

Configuration​

Settings live in metabase/defaults.env and can be overridden in your own .env:

VariableDefaultWhat it does
METABASE_PORT3030Host port Metabase is published on (container always listens on 3000 internally).
METABASE_DB_FILEmetabase.dbFilename for Metabase's own application database (an embedded H2 file, stores dashboards/questions/users, not your app data).

Metabase's application data persists under DATA_PATH_HOST/metabase-data, mounted into the container. Connecting Metabase to your actual app database (MySQL, Postgres, etc.) is done from Metabase's own admin UI after first boot, not via .env.

First-time setup​

docker compose up -d metabase

Open http://localhost:3030 and follow the setup wizard to create an admin account, then add a database connection. Inside Laradock, other containers are reachable by name (mysql, postgres, etc.), use those as the host, not localhost.

See Running Metabase on Docker for the full range of configuration options (email, SSO, embedding) beyond what Laradock wires up by default.

Common issues​

  • Setup wizard runs again after a restart. Confirm DATA_PATH_HOST/metabase-data actually persisted, if that folder was deleted or DATA_PATH_HOST changed, Metabase starts with a fresh application database.
  • Can't connect to your app's database from Metabase. Use the container name (mysql, postgres, ...) as the host in Metabase's connection form, localhost from inside the metabase container refers to the Metabase container itself.
  • Port already in use on your host. Change METABASE_PORT in .env and restart: docker compose up -d metabase.
  • Metabase feels slow on first load. This is normal, Metabase's JVM-based backend takes a bit longer to start than most containers; check docker compose logs metabase for Metabase Initialization COMPLETE before assuming it's stuck.

Need the database Metabase is reporting on? See the Databases guide. New to Laradock? Start at Getting Started.