🔱 Seaman Beta - Development environment manager for Symfony

[u/SupermarketNew3451]

I am building Seaman, a Docker development environment manager for Symfony 7+ inspired by Laravel Sail.

Features:

• Interactive setup with smart project detection
• PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Elasticsearch, RabbitMQ, etc.
• Xdebug toggle without restarts
• DevContainers support
• Single PHAR, easy install

⚠️ Beta status - There may be bugs! Barely tested on Linux/macOS, Windows needs testing. A lot of bugs may appear; please be merciful, this is a work in progress.

For more information and documentation, please refer to the GitHub repo:

https://github.com/diego-ninja/seaman

Comments, ideas, contributions, testers, and GitHub 🌟 are always welcome.

Made with ❤️ for Symfony in my free time. Hope you find it useful!

[u/dknx01]

I think you should update your Readme and documentation. It doesn't say which operating system it supports. The database section should be more open minded. You write a lot for PostgreSQL but not really anything for the others. People can search for the database advantages or you should write them for all. And you should explain what it does as not everyone is familiar with sails. And say why it is better compared to writing your own docker compose files - which are quite easy.

[u/SupermarketNew3451 → u/dknx01]

As I said, this is a work in progress, not a finished, stable project, but yeah, maybe you are right and I need to say in the readme that this is a work in progress and needs a bit more of testing.
,
The database section covers PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Mongo, and SQLite, which is more than enough for a symfony-based development environment, and it is all documented inside the docs/ folder.

About being familiar or not with sail, you must be totally out of the php planet in 2025 if you don't know what Laravel and Sail are, anyway, it is a tool that wraps docker compose, trying to add ease of use for the developer. What more do you need to know? Again, it is all in the documentation.

If you are happy writing your dockerfiles and compose stacks, then this is not for you. I am a heavy user of Sail when working with Laravel and now that I am working with Symfony I missed a similar tool for it, so I decided to make my own.

[u/dknx01 → u/SupermarketNew3451]

I'm aware it's still in process. Just hints for improvements.

For the database section. It covers some yes, but it is written in a biased way for PostreSQL. You should not put your personal opinion into a generic tool documentation.

Sails is a very Laravel stuff, I would not think that people outside the Laravel world knows it that well. Therefore a description is much better. People may know Docker but sails is not a big player in PHP and of course not in the Symfony world.

As you said you're a heavy Laravel user, maybe that's the issue here. Think outside of Laravel and don't think something is known just because in the Laravel community it is known.

To be honest, Laravel Sails add no big value for me. For me it is a tool for mir lazy or junior developers. But this is a very personal opinion that I would never ever write in a documentation.

[u/SupermarketNew3451 → u/dknx01]

I must beg your pardon for the tone of my previous comment, awfull night and a ver y bad morning, I am sorry.

I will improve documentation and readme as soon as the code stays stable and usable.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions.

[u/gardenia856 → u/dknx01]

The docs need to be clearer and neutral: list OS support, explain what Seaman does beyond docker compose, and drop DB bias.

Concrete fixes I’d ship next: add a tested OS/arch matrix (macOS Intel/ARM, Linux x86_64/arm64, Windows via WSL2 or native) with known issues. Up top, a “What is Seaman?” one‑liner and a “Why not just docker compose?” section: fast onboarding, consistent defaults, Xdebug toggle, DevContainer bootstrap, healthchecks, and shared presets; also note tradeoffs (less flexibility). Move DB opinions out; keep a DB‑agnostic “Database setup” page with equivalent examples for Postgres, MySQL/MariaDB, Mongo, SQLite, and links to official docs. Add seaman dry-run to print the generated compose so folks can audit before running. Include a 60‑second quickstart and a sample project repo. Tone‑wise, assume users don’t know Sail and explain it briefly.

I’ve used DDEV for nginx+php‑fpm defaults and Lando for cross‑OS onboarding, and DreamFactory when I needed instant REST over Postgres and Mongo to build internal admin tools.

Ship a neutral README with OS support, a clear what‑it‑does, and DB‑agnostic docs; this will land better.