Install Docker Compose

After installing Docker, you may also want to install Docker Compose. This tool allows you to manage applications that rely on multiple containers instead of just one.

This tutorial assumes you are running Debian 8 or Ubuntu 16.04.

Using PIP3 (recommended)

If you are using Debian 10, and probably the case for Ubuntu 20.04 too, then you want to install docker-compose using the following:

sudo apt-get install python3-pip -y \
  && sudo pip3 install --upgrade pip \
  && sudo pip3 install docker-compose

Versions

• Debian 10 - docker-compose version 1.25.5, build unknown

Using PIP

This method was what I used when installing the latest version of docker-compose on Debian 8 and Ubuntu 16.04.

sudo apt-get install python-pip -y \
  && sudo pip install --upgrade pip \
  && sudo pip install docker-compose

Native Packages

On Ubuntu 18.04, you can install docker-compose by simply running:

sudo apt-get install docker-compose -y

This will install an older version than the PIP method, but should get the job done. I found this caused strange issues when building docker images in Ubuntu 18.04 so went back to using PIP.

Check Version

To test that you have successfully installed docker compose, run the following command:

docker-compose --version