# Quickstart
There are a couple of ways to get started with n8n.
# Sign-up on n8n.cloud
Sign-up for an n8n.cloud (opens new window) account.
While n8n.cloud and n8n are the same in terms of features, n8n.cloud provides certain conveniences such as:
- Not having to set up and maintain your n8n instance
- Managed OAuth for authentication
- Easily upgrading to the newer n8n versions
# Give it a spin using npx
To spin up n8n using npx, you can run:
npx n8n
It will download everything that is needed to start n8n.
You can then access n8n by opening: http://localhost:5678 (opens new window)
# Run with Docker
To play around with n8n, you can also start it using Docker:
docker run -it --rm \
--name n8n \
-p 5678:5678 \
n8nio/n8n
Be aware that all the data will be lost once the Docker container gets removed. To
persist the data mount the ~/.n8n
folder:
docker run -it --rm \
--name n8n \
-p 5678:5678 \
-v ~/.n8n:/home/node/.n8n \
n8nio/n8n
n8n also offers a Docker image for Raspberry Pi: n8nio/n8n:latest-rpi
.
More information about the Docker setup can be found in the README file of the Docker Image (opens new window).
In case you run into issues, check out the troubleshooting page or ask for help in the community forum (opens new window).
# Install with npm
To install n8n globally using npm:
npm install n8n -g
After the installation n8n can be started by typing in:
n8n
# or
n8n start
# Post installation: Starting n8n with tunnel
WARNING
This is only meant for local development and testing. It should not be used in production.
Note: n8n.cloud users can skip this section.
To be able to use webhooks for trigger nodes of external services like GitHub, n8n has to be reachable from the web. To make that easy, n8n has a special tunnel service, which redirects requests from our servers to your local n8n instance (uses this code: https://github.com/localtunnel/localtunnel (opens new window)).
If you've installed n8n using npm, start n8n with --tunnel
n8n start --tunnel
If you're running n8n with Docker, start n8n with --tunnel
docker run -it --rm \
--name n8n \
-p 5678:5678 \
-v ~/.n8n:/home/node/.n8n \
n8nio/n8n \
n8n start --tunnel
In case you run into issues, check out the troubleshooting page or ask for help in the community forum (opens new window).