How to set up a local WordPress development server with phpMyAdmin using Docker2 min read

In a previous post  I described how to set up a local WordPress dev server with an Adminer web app to control the Mysql database. I have been using that setup for quite some time now. Despite being very lightweight, I feel Adminer is very limited. In addition, I didn’t really get used to it. Therefore, I decided to switch back to phpMyAdmin. I have been using it for over 10 years, and it’s my default for all sites I develop.

Here is an updated version of the docker-compose.ymlfile if you want phpMyAdmin to be your default web app for managing your Mysql database in this setup:

version: '3.9'
services:
  wp_mysql:
    image: mysql:latest
    container_name: wp_mysql_cont
    command: mysqld --character-set-server=utf8mb4 --collation-server=utf8mb4_unicode_ci --default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password
    restart: on-failure
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: secret
      MYSQL_DATABASE: wp_db
      MYSQL_USER: wp_db_user
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: wp_db_user_pass
    ports:
      - "6033:3306"
    volumes:
      - wp_mysql_volume:/var/lib/mysql

  wp_app:
    image: wordpress:latest
    environment:
      WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: wp_mysql
      WORDPRESS_DB_USER: wp_db_user
      WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: wp_db_user_pass
      WORDPRESS_DB_NAME: wp_db
    volumes:
      # - wp_web_app_volume:/var/www/html
      - ./wp-data:/var/www/html/
    restart: on-failure
    ports:
      - 8081:80
  phpmyadmin:
    image: phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin
    container_name: phpmyadmin_cont
    environment:
      - PMA_HOST=wp_mysql
      - PMA_PORT=3306
      # - PMA_ARBITRARY=1 uncomment if you want to enter the DB host manually
    links:
      - wp_mysql
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 8082:80
volumes:
  wp_mysql_volume:

Save the above file on your disk, and from within the command line, run the following command: docker-compose up (assuming you have already installed docker-compose and docker on your system). After that, you can head to the following URL http://localhost:8081/ to install WordPress and use it later on.
Using this URL http://localhost:8082/, you will be able to access phpMyAdmin to manage your Mysql databases. For logging in, use the same credentials specified in the docker-compose.yml file.