Install Drupal using DDEV for local development

Introduction to DDEV

The Drupal community selected DDEV as the recommended local development environment in June 2024. DDEV is an open source docker-based tool for creating local web development projects in minutes. Drupal is one of many projects that DDEV supports.

Install DDEV

The following instructions to setup DDEV for working with Drupal links to the DDEV documentation.

1. Check requirements
   Confirm that your system meets the requirements listed in the DDEV system requirements.

2. Install Docker
   Go to Docker installation, select your environment and follow the instructions. If installing DDEV on Docker Engine on WSL2 on Windows, the DDEV installation script will handle Docker installation.

3. Install DDEV
   Go to DDEV installation, select your environment and follow the instructions.

Install Drupal

Drupal can be downloaded using Composer or with a Git clone of Drupal core. Downloading with composer is the recommended method for most projects. Using a Git clone is typically used for contributing to Drupal core.

Option 1. Using Composer

Go to the Drupal section of the CMS Quickstarts and follow the instructions.

Congratulations! The latest official release of Drupal is now installed and open in your default browser. Also installed is Drush, the command line shell for working with Drupal.

Option 2. Using Git with clone

1. Get the development version per the Drupal core version control instructions

   If you want to develop on Drupal core (e.g., fix bugs or issues in Drupal core), use the following command:
   git clone https://git.drupalcode.org/project/drupal.git

2. Make sure to go to the Drupal directory:

   cd drupal

3. Create the DDEV project:

   ddev config --project-type drupalN

   where N is the version of Drupal you want to use.

4. Start the project:

   ddev start

5. Get the external dependencies for Drupal core:

   ddev composer install

6. Install Drush, the command line tool for working with Drupal:

   ddev composer require drush/drush

7. Install Drupal using drush:

   ddev drush site:install -y

8. Launch your new Drupal site in a new tab of your default browser:

   ddev launch

   ... or automatically log into the admin account

   ddev launch $(ddev drush uli)

Congratulations! The latest snapshot of Drupal's development version (the main branch) is now installed and open in your default browser. You can now test Drupal patches and merge requests.

Info and support

Read Getting Started with DDEV (January 2026) for an introduction and the DDEV blog, for regular updates.

For support, there is support from the DDEV project and in Drupal Slack there are the #ddev and the #ddev-for-core-dev channels.