Docker Compose is the quickest way to try LangWatch locally. It runs the full stack in containers on your machine.
Prerequisites
- Docker with Docker Compose v2
- 4 CPU cores, 8 GB RAM, 20 GB disk
Quick Start
LangWatch is available at http://localhost:5560.
Why port 5560? On a T9 keyboard, 5560 spells “LLM”.
Services
Docker Compose starts the following services:
Configuration
Edit langwatch/.env to customize your deployment. Key variables:
See Environment Variables for the full reference.
Common Operations
Start in the background
View logs
Stop services
Update to latest version
Reset data
Customization
Disable optional services
If you don’t need NLP or evaluators, comment them out in compose.yml:
Remove the corresponding upstream URLs from the app environment to avoid connection errors.
Connect to external databases
Replace the postgres and redis services with connection strings to your existing instances:
Connect to external ClickHouse
Replace the clickhouse service with a connection string to your existing instance:
Limitations
Docker Compose is suitable for evaluation and small teams but lacks:
- High availability: single instance of each service
- Horizontal scaling: cannot scale workers independently
- Automated backups: no built-in backup scheduling
- TLS: no built-in HTTPS (use a reverse proxy like nginx or Caddy)
For production, migrate to the Kubernetes Helm chart.
Next Steps