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Installing Compose

Compose is a plugin for the Docker CLI — not a separate program. The command is docker compose (a space). If you have a current Docker installation, you may already have it.

The check

docker compose version

Check: you want output like this (exact numbers move with releases):

Docker Compose version v5.6.0

If instead you see unknown command: docker compose, the plugin is missing — install it per your platform below.

Linux

On Debian/Ubuntu with Docker's official repository:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install docker-compose-plugin
docker compose version

On Fedora/RHEL-likes:

sudo dnf install docker-compose-plugin

If your distro's Docker package doesn't ship the plugin, download the binary from the Compose releases page into ~/.docker/cli-plugins/ and make it executable:

mkdir -p ~/.docker/cli-plugins
curl -SL -o ~/.docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose \
  https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/latest/download/docker-compose-linux-x86_64
chmod +x ~/.docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose
docker compose version

The CLI picks up any executable named docker-compose in that directory — no root needed for this route.

macOS and Windows

Docker Desktop includes the Compose plugin out of the box. Install (or update) Docker Desktop and docker compose version just works. No separate step.

A note on docker-compose (hyphen)

Old guides invoke docker-compose as its own command. That's v1, long retired. If a tutorial tells you to pip install docker-compose, it's outdated — use the plugin form. The compose file concepts transfer; the command doesn't.

Next: Your First Compose File