Hey everyone! I’m totally new to n8n and workflow automation in general. I want to get started by running n8n on my own computer instead of using cloud services. I’ve been reading about different installation methods but I’m not sure which approach would work best for a beginner like me. Should I use Docker, npm installation, or maybe there’s another way? I’m looking for something that’s not too complicated to set up and maintain. I have basic computer skills but I’m not super technical yet. What would you recommend as the easiest and most reliable method to get n8n running locally? Any tips or gotchas I should know about before I start? Thanks for helping out a newbie!
docker’s honestly simpler than it sounds. pull the official n8n image and run docker run -it --rm --name n8n -p 5678:5678 n8nio/n8n - you’re running in seconds. skip the headache of node versions and global installs. ctrl+c kills it when you’re done. great way to test without installing anything permanent.
Been running n8n locally for about a year - npm’s definitely the way to go. Tried Docker first but hit annoying permission issues with file mounting that ate up hours of troubleshooting. With npm you just install Node.js, run npm install n8n -g and you’re done. Took maybe 10 minutes vs hours fighting Docker configs. Pro tip: use Node 16 or newer. Found out the hard way when my workflows kept crashing on older versions. Updating’s super easy too - just run the install command again. The local tunnel feature’s great for testing webhooks, which you’ll definitely need.
Skip Docker and npm - go with Docker Compose instead. Set up a docker-compose.yml with the n8n service and mount a volume for data storage. You get Docker’s isolation but way easier management and auto-restarts. Don’t skip the data persistence part - I lost all my workflows once when a container restarted. You can throw in PostgreSQL later without rebuilding everything. Just expose port 5678 and map a local folder to /home/node/.n8n. Beats dealing with npm package mess or Node version headaches.