But it is. I used boot2docker a year ago and i can confirm that is was so slow that i used nfs instead. But the newer virtualbox versions have better shared folders which in my experience are on the same level as nfs shares. As I said, I have symfony and typo3 projects running with docker on a mac. I tested a typo3 project with 5200 php files and cache disabled (although still not all are used for a request).
This is the an apache benchmark result for a page with docker for mac:
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
50% 2029
66% 2130
75% 2223
80% 2292
90% 2474
95% 2593
98% 2699
99% 2735
100% 2735 (longest request)
This is the same request with the same benchmark and the same configuration but using docker-toolbox:
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
50% 561
66% 584
75% 613
80% 621
90% 691
95% 737
98% 796
99% 880
100% 880 (longest request)
I don’t have php 7 natively installed and I can’t easily reproduce this environment natively… I could try to start docker completely within a linux vm but I think my point is already clear. I would try the docker-toolbox.
EDIT: I thought I add some information: I used docker for mac Version 1.13.1-rc1-beta40 and docker-toolbox with the vmware fusion driver.