How to run Docker on a Mac without Docker Desktop

Docker Desktop bundles three things: the docker command-line client, a Linux VM with the Docker Engine inside it, and a GUI. On a Mac you only need the first two, and the client doesn’t care which engine it talks to. This guide replaces Docker Desktop with the Docker CLI from Homebrew and EZGH DevRun, a desktop app and CLI that runs containers in a lightweight VM on Apple Silicon.

What you need

• An Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later) with macOS 13 Ventura or later.
• Homebrew for the Docker command-line tools.
• About 125 MB for the DevRun download. Its VM disk is sparse, so it only uses the space your images and volumes take.

1. Install DevRun and start it

Download DevRun, open the disk image and drag DevRun to Applications. Open it: the VM starts on its own, and the status bar turns to Running when containers are ready.

DevRun isn’t notarized by Apple yet, so macOS asks you to confirm the first launch. Go to System Settings › Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. You only do this once.

2. Install the devrun CLI

The app doesn’t add devrun to your PATH, so install the CLI once:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
curl -fsSL https://devrun.app/download/cli | sudo tar -xz -C /usr/local/bin devrun
devrun --version

3. Install the Docker CLI, Buildx and Compose

brew install docker docker-buildx docker-compose

Buildx and Compose are Docker CLI plugins, and Homebrew installs them where the CLI doesn’t look by default. Add Homebrew’s plugin folder to ~/.docker/config.json (create the file if it doesn’t exist, and merge the key if it does):

{
  "cliPluginsExtraDirs": ["/opt/homebrew/lib/docker/cli-plugins"]
}

Check that both plugins load:

docker buildx version
docker compose version

DevRun needs Buildx 0.14 or newer. At the time of writing Homebrew ships Docker CLI 29.9, Buildx 0.38 and Compose 5.6, the versions DevRun is tested with.

4. Point Docker at DevRun

Set up DevRun’s builder once, then point the current shell at DevRun:

devrun builder-setup
eval "$(devrun docker-env)"

docker-env sets DOCKER_HOST to DevRun’s private socket and BUILDX_BUILDER to its builder, for this shell only. To use DevRun in every new terminal, add the eval line to ~/.zshrc.

5. Run something

docker run --rm alpine:3.23 echo hello
docker compose up --build
docker ps

Published ports listen on 127.0.0.1, so a service on -p 8080:80 is at http://localhost:8080. Containers, images and volumes are shared between the Docker CLI, the devrun CLI and the app, so whatever docker compose up starts shows up in DevRun’s window too.

What works, and what doesn’t yet

DevRun implements the parts of the Docker API that day-to-day development uses:

Works	Not supported yet
docker run, ps, logs, exec -it, attach, stats, events	UDP port publishing
docker compose projects with named networks and service aliases	Custom network drivers and IPAM
docker build and compose up --build on BuildKit	Pushing images; private registry credentials
Named volumes and bind mounts from your home folder and /tmp	Building for architectures other than ARM64

Unsupported operations return an error rather than doing something unexpected.

Troubleshooting

Cannot connect to the Docker daemon. The shell isn’t pointed at DevRun, or DevRun isn’t running. Open the app, then run eval "$(devrun docker-env)" in that shell.

docker: 'buildx' is not a docker command. The CLI can’t find Homebrew’s plugins. Check the cliPluginsExtraDirs entry in ~/.docker/config.json.

A bind mount fails. By default DevRun shares your home folder and /tmp. Share other folders under File sharing in the app or with devrun share configure; new folders apply after the VM restarts.

Hot reload doesn’t notice your edits. File changes made on the Mac don’t raise file system events inside containers, so dev servers need to poll. See why hot reload stops working in Docker on a Mac.