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Mendix Runtime Crates — Wiki

Run any Mendix application (Mendix 7 → 11) in Docker — model-free, Studio-Pro-free, recipe-only. Bind-mount your unzipped MDA, set a few env vars, get a working Mendix runtime with zero rebuilds and zero dangling images.

🔗 Repo: github.com/ontologylabs/mendix-runtime-crates · Recipe-only: no Mendix binaries are committed — the runtime is pulled from the Mendix CDN at build time. Apache-2.0.

Per-version guides

Mendix	JRE	The thing that trips people up	Guide
7.23	Java 8	model-default constants; legacy m2ee boot	Running Mendix 7 in Docker
8.18 LTS	Java 11	EOL, but the final patch is CDN-hosted; recipe-pull like the rest	Running Mendix 8 in Docker
9.24	Java 11	JDK 21 fails — must use JDK 11	Running Mendix 9 in Docker
10.24 LTS	Java 21	DEVELOPMENT_MODE + slow large-app first-boot DDL	Running Mendix 10 in Docker
11.x	Java 21	strict startup (security + password)	Running Mendix 11 in Docker

Building, not just running. Each version now also ships a build crate (crates/mendix-<N>/build/) that compiles an .mpr → .mda with mxbuild in Docker — no Studio Pro. See Building Mendix apps in Docker.

Why a "crate"?

The official cf-mendix-buildpack Docker pattern bakes the model into the image — every reload spawns a new ~785 MB image and orphans the previous one. These crates invert that: the model is bind-mounted, the image is stable, and reload is docker compose restart (disk cost per reload: 0). One image per Mendix version, reusable across every app at that version.

30-second start

git clone https://github.com/ontologylabs/mendix-runtime-crates
cd mendix-runtime-crates/crates/mendix-10
docker build --platform linux/amd64 --build-arg MENDIX_VERSION=10.24.13.86719 \
  -t ontologylabs/mendix-runtime:10 .
unzip your-app.mda -d ./tests/mda
docker compose -f tests/docker-compose.smoke.yml up   # → http://localhost:8080

Part of the mxto toolchain

These crates are the runtime layer of mxto — a toolchain for comprehending, transforming, and operating Mendix applications. The crates let you stand up any Mendix version, model-free, as the substrate for analysis, testing, and migration.