How to run a development branch of Metabase using Docker

If you want to run a branch of Metabase that’s currently in development, the easiest way to get started is to use a pre-built Docker image. You can also compile Metabase yourself.

If you’re looking to download and run the latest official open-source version of Metabase, check the operations guide.

Installing Docker

The only thing you’ll need to get started is Docker itself.

OR

  • If you like to install things via Homebrew:
brew install --cask docker

Once Docker is installed, you’re ready to go.

Run a development branch to test or verify features

See here for a list of development branches that you can run via Docker.

  1. Open your terminal app of choice.
  2. Copy and paste this command, switching out <branch-name> for the name of the branch you’d like to test:
docker run --platform linux/amd64 -d -p 3000:3000 --name metabase-dev metabase/metabase-dev:<branch-name>
  1. In your browser, navigate to http://localhost:3000, where you should see Metabase. It may take a minute or two to start up depending on your computer.

Note: This will always start Metabase with a fresh database.

Pull and run the latest changes

Run:

docker pull metabase/metabase-enterprise-head:latest

Then:

docker run --platform linux/amd64 -d -p 3000:3000 --name metabase metabase/metabase-enterprise-head:latest

The “latest” tag is not automatically upgraded on your local machine, so the above commands ensure that you’re pulling the latest changes.

Read docs for other versions of Metabase.