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Docker Tip #45: Docker Compose Stop vs Down

The docker-compose stop command will stop your containers, but it won’t remove them.

The docker-compose down command will stop your containers, but it also removes the stopped containers as well as any networks that were created.

You can take down 1 step further and add the -v flag to remove all volumes too. This is great for doing a full blown reset on your environment by running docker-compose down -v.

There’s other neat things you could with the down command. Run the docker-compose down --help command to learn more about them.

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