My 3 tips for speeding up Docker on Mac

1. Use VIRTIOFS

https://www.docker.com/blog/speed-boost-achievement-unlocked-on-docker-desktop-4-6-for-mac/

2. Use docker-sync or mutagen-compose

• Docker sync: https://eduardosasso.medium.com/moving-a-rails-monolith-to-docker-8da0f98d4b1e
• Mutagen sync: https://mutagen.io/documentation/introduction/getting-started

3. Use rsync/unison/whatever to sync files inside container

Dont mount your code directly into place where it will be run. Instead mount it to /sync and use rsync/unison to sync it into place where it will be run (/app). This will make sure that only changed files will be synced and not the whole project. Also synchronization will happen inside container and that will make it faster.

That's it for this post, thanks for reading!