Connect docker compose apps

A shipping container on the back of a large whale

Locally, I use Docker and WSL2 for development. Inevitably I need to connect multiple docker compose apps, this blog post details how.

If I’m reading data from an API, I might use the public instance of an API. However, as soon as I need to create, update, or delete data, the public API doesn’t work, I switch to using a local instance.

Connect docker compose apps

Connecting multiple docker compose apps is simple as soon as you know how. I’m sure there are multiple ways to do it but the following works for me.

To ensure two or more docker compose apps can see each other, I ensure they use the same network, add the network to each of the docker-compose.yml files as below.

networks:
    default:
        name: costs.network
        external: true

Before you run each of the apps you will need to create the new network, the syntax to create a network is as below.

docker network create [network-name]

If you named your network costs.network as per my example, you would create the network as below.

docker network create costs.network

Your apps will now be able to see each other, all you need now is the URI. The URI should be the service name, if you review the Costs to Expect API docker-compose.yml file, you will see that I have set the service name as costs.api.app, the URI to access the API is therefore http://costs.api.app.

Budget Pro Alpha

Screenshot of the Budget Pro budget overview and test saying "Budget Pro is Budget on steroids - it's everything you love about Budget improved in every way. More viewing options, more controls, you name it."

We released Budget into beta last year, the official release happened in January. We have consistently stated that Budget Pro will be released within the first half of 2023. As of the time of writing, 29th May 2023, everything is on track. The first alpha of Budget Pro should be ready before the end of June.

Taking it slow

We took our time releasing Budget, the beta was launched in November 2022. We spent two months responding to feedback before the official release in January 2023. This approach is working for Budget so we are going to do the same thing with Budget Pro, but we are going to take even more time.

Our plans for Budget Pro

If everything goes to plan, the alpha will be released soon. We are aiming for an alpha, beta and then the official release. Other than the planned date for the alpha, we are not committing to any further times or release dates, Budget Pro will be ready when it is done.

The alpha will have all the features of Budget as well as additional viewing options and custom user settings. The beta release will include all the features listed on the features page and anything we think of in the meantime. The official release will only be tagged after an extended testing and bug fixing period.

We are going to invite a small number of users to the alpha and leave it open to public registrations. All users who sign up to the alpha or beta will be gifted a subscription once we get to the official release. We haven’t yet decided on the length of the gifted subscriptions but we do want to show our appreciation to our early users.

We can’t wait to release Budget Pro. I’m pleased with Budget, our free and open-source budgeting App, but Budget Pro is on a whole other level. It does so much more than Budget, the viewing options alone massively increase the usefulness of the tool.