We recommend Remix for small contracts and for quickly learning Solidity.
Access Remix online, you do not need to install anything. If you want to use it without connection to the Internet, go to https://github.com/ethereum/remix-live/tree/gh-pages and download the .zip file as explained on that page. Remix is also a convenient option for testing nightly builds without installing multiple Solidity versions.
Further options on this page detail installing commandline Solidity compiler software on your computer. Choose a commandline compiler if you are working on a larger contract or if you require more compilation options.
Use npm for a convenient and portable way to install solcjs, a Solidity compiler. The solcjs program has fewer features than the ways to access the compiler described further down this page. The Using the Commandline Compiler documentation assumes you are using the full-featured compiler, solc. The usage of solcjs is documented inside its own repository.
Note: The solc-js project is derived from the C++ solc by using Emscripten which means that both use the same compiler source code. solc-js can be used in JavaScript projects directly (such as Remix). Please refer to the solc-js repository for instructions.
npm install -g solc
Note
The commandline executable is named solcjs.
The commandline options of solcjs are not compatible with solc and tools (such as geth) expecting the behaviour of solc will not work with solcjs.
Docker images of Solidity builds are available using the solc image from the ethereum organisation. Use the stable tag for the latest released version, and nightly for potentially unstable changes in the develop branch.
The Docker image runs the compiler executable, so you can pass all compiler arguments to it. For example, the command below pulls the stable version of the solc image (if you do not have it already), and runs it in a new container, passing the --help argument.
docker run ethereum/solc:stable --help
You can also specify release build versions in the tag, for example, for the 0.5.4 release.
docker run ethereum/solc:0.5.4 --help
To use the Docker image to compile Solidity files on the host machine mount a local folder for input and output, and specify the contract to compile. For example.
docker run -v /local/path:/sources ethereum/solc:stable -o /sources/output --abi --bin /sources/Contract.sol
You can also use the standard JSON interface (which is recommended when using the compiler with tooling). When using this interface it is not necessary to mount any directories as long as the JSON input is self-contained (i.e. it does not refer to any external files that would have to be loaded by the import callback).