Docker is not meant only for building and deploying containers. In fact, I would hazard a guess, it, and especially docker compose is much more commonly used in dev environments.
It is a huge help to get an identical environment to develop on. Especially when you have more complex apps with different services.
> It is a huge help to get an identical environment to develop on.
Until you stumble on some file permission problems if you use volumes; or some difference if the host is linux or macOS. Pure VM are the best: copy your virtual server, launch it, deploy your code. You can even have multiple containers launched inside your VM like on your production server.
Like any solution, there will be some kinks to work through. When you are deploying updates multiple times a day, it is nice to not have to upload a new VM everytime we push a change to the CI.
It is a huge help to get an identical environment to develop on. Especially when you have more complex apps with different services.