# Quickstart

There are a couple of ways to get started with n8n.

Sign-up on n8n.cloud
Give it a spin using npx
Run with Docker
Install with npm
Post installation: Starting n8n with tunnel

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)

Note: The minimum required version for Node.js is v14.15. Make sure to update Node.js to v14.15 or above.

# 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