How to upgrade docker-compose to latest version

The easiest way to have a permanent and sustainable solution for the Docker Compose installation and the way to upgrade it, is to just use the package manager pip with:

pip install docker-compose

I was searching for a good solution for the ugly "how to upgrade to the latest version number"-problem, which appeared after you´ve read the official docs - and just found it occasionally - just have a look at the docker-compose pip package - it should reflect (mostly) the current number of the latest released Docker Compose version.

A package manager is always the best solution if it comes to managing software installations! So you just abstract from handling the versions on your own.

If you tried sudo apt-get remove docker-compose and get E: Unable to locate package docker-compose, try this method :

This command must return a result, in order to check it is installed here :

ls -l /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

Remove the old version :

sudo rm -rf docker-compose

Download the last version (check official repo : docker/compose/releases) :

sudo curl -L "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.24.0/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)" -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

(replace 1.24.0 if needed)

Finally, apply executable permissions to the binary:

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

Check version :

docker-compose -v

First, remove the old version:

If installed via apt-get

sudo apt-get remove docker-compose

If installed via curl

sudo rm /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

If installed via pip

pip uninstall docker-compose

Then find the newest version on the release page at GitHub or by curling the API and extracting the version from the response using grep or jq (thanks to dragon788, frbl, and Saber Hayati for these improvements):

# curl + grep
VERSION=$(curl --silent https://api.github.com/repos/docker/compose/releases/latest | grep -Po '"tag_name": "\K.*\d')

# curl + jq
VERSION=$(curl --silent https://api.github.com/repos/docker/compose/releases/latest | jq .name -r)

Finally, download to your favorite $PATH-accessible location and set permissions:

DESTINATION=/usr/local/bin/docker-compose
sudo curl -L https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/${VERSION}/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m) -o $DESTINATION
sudo chmod 755 $DESTINATION