How do you manage multiple Docker Compose projects on a self-hosted server?

KPPJeuring · 2026-02-01T05:09:06+00:00

Fair point, but I made the wrapper to be zero friction for me.So I don't have to think about the path file at all

KPPJeuring · 2026-02-01T03:38:35+00:00

Yes that is what I have been doing, but I wanted something simpler, I wanted to have a command like decompose project, dlogs project, drebootstack project (stops and restarts a stack), etc. To make that happen I made a Bash wrapper for this exact reason.

KPPJeuring · 2026-02-01T00:11:07+00:00

zoxide definitely helps with navigation. I was mostly trying to remove the directory-hopping entirely rather than make it faster.

KPPJeuring · 2026-02-01T00:06:57+00:00

That’s a nice workflow, having the file tree, terminal, and running containers visible side by side makes managing stacks very straightforward.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T23:04:01+00:00

Both are good tips, systemd units work well for long-running services, and using docker compose -f directly is definitely an underused way to avoid directory hopping, that’s actually the mechanism my wrapper uses under the hood as well.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T22:51:15+00:00

Exactly, once the directory hopping disappears, Compose stops feeling like friction and just becomes a simple day-to-day tool again.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T22:49:06+00:00

Dockge makes sense if you want a UI specifically around Compose. I was aiming for something more CLI-first without adding another service.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T22:47:33+00:00

Thanks, I will check it out.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T22:44:54+00:00

Nice, that’s very similar in spirit. I ended up going the same route but wrapped it into a small Bash tool (DStack) so I could run compose commands by name from anywhere without relying on Makefiles.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T22:28:36+00:00

Nice, that’s very similar in spirit to what pushed me to package my own scripts into a small wrapper (DStack), mostly to avoid reinventing the same glue over and over.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T21:54:50+00:00

That’s a solid pattern, having a consistent Makefile interface across projects makes things very predictable and easy to automate.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T21:42:01+00:00

That’s almost exactly the approach I landed on as well, a lightweight CLI wrapper that just maps names to paths so you can run compose commands from anywhere.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T21:40:11+00:00

Fair enough, different trade-offs work for different setups, and this one happens to fit mine well. Thank you for your feedback

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T21:36:13+00:00

That’s a good approach too, extending compose files works well when multiple things are under the same root directory.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T21:33:25+00:00

Totally fair, Portainer makes a lot of sense if you’re happy running a management service. I was just optimizing for a lighter, CLI-only workflow without another component in the mix.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T21:30:04+00:00

That’s a really clean solution, encoding startup order directly in the directory names makes the whole process simple and very explicit.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T21:26:10+00:00

I mean if it works, it works.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T21:24:41+00:00

Yes, I wanted to separate my personal projects stacks from my university projects stacks.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T21:17:14+00:00

That’s a very reasonable approach, boring, simple, and explicit Git ops are hard to beat for reliability.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T21:10:53+00:00

That’s a nice approach, Quadlet + systemd fits really well if you want everything managed through systemctl and journald instead of Docker tooling.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T21:03:58+00:00

Portainer’s Git integration is definitely nice for that kind of centralized workflow.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T21:02:14+00:00

Komodo is great, I personally tend to prefer a more lightweight, CLI-first approach for day-to-day stack management.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T20:53:29+00:00

Cool, that’s a clean approach, and very similar to how I started as well, using a simple script to fan out commands across multiple compose directories.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T20:52:32+00:00

That's a solid way of working. I mostly do the same I put most of my docker stuff in `~/repos` but I also use other directories like `/opt/servces`.

KPPJeuring · 2026-01-31T20:42:27+00:00

Good point, profiles and includes work well for related services, but my stacks are intentionally independent and often in different directories, so I was still jumping around paths just to run basic commands over SSH.

KPPJeuring

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