Get the Docker for Mac installer from the official download site.I can’t do a better job of explaining the process than the official Docker for Mac docs. The answer is Docker! Setting up Docker on MacOS and running SQL Server is a pretty straightforward task with only a couple hiccups along the way. And anyone who’s used the installer on Windows, you might not want to revisit that experience anyway. But if you’re using SQL Server and don’t want the delay or cost of talking to a cloud hosted database, how do you do it? There’s no Mac installer for SQL Server. NET Core will run anywhere and tools like Visual Studio Code offer a great. NET developer there’s a decent chance you want to develop on a Mac since. In 2016 they announced support for SQL Server on Linux. Modern Microsoft is working really hard to make sure that all their tools work on any operating system.