Installing Postgres directly on your machine works, but it gets messy fast once you're juggling multiple projects that each want different versions, extensions, or seed data. Docker sidesteps all of that you get a clean, disposable Postgres instance per project, and your host machine stays untouched.
This guide covers running Postgres in Docker for local development: quick one-off containers, docker-compose for anything you'll come back to, persistent data, and a few things that trip people up.
1. The quickest way to get a Postgres instance running
docker run --name my-postgres \
-e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=secret \
