Install CypherDB

CypherDB is an embedded graph database that can be used from the command line and from a variety of programming languages. This page shows all the ways you can install CypherDB. After installation, you can learn how to run CypherDB by creating your first graph.

License

All source code and pre-compiled binaries of CypherDB are distributed under the MIT License. By installing and using CypherDB, you acknowledge and agree to these terms.

Command Line (Shell)

If you don’t need CypherDB embedded in your application, you can use the CLI shell. This is a standalone executable with no dependencies that can be used to interact with a CypherDB database using just Cypher.

Linux

Use a tool like curl to download the latest version of the CypherDB CLI to your local machine.

# x86-64
curl -L -O https://github.com/opencypher/cypherdb/releases/download/v0.11.0/kuzu_cli-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
# aarch64
curl -L -O https://github.com/opencypher/cypherdb/releases/download/v0.11.0/kuzu_cli-linux-aarch64.tar.gz

tar xzf kuzu_cli-*.tar.gz

Now you can run CypherDB from the command line.

./kuzu

macOS

You can install the CypherDB CLI using Homebrew.

brew install kuzu

You can now run CypherDB from the command line.

kuzu

Alternatively, you can download the CypherDB CLI directly.

curl -L -O https://github.com/opencypher/cypherdb/releases/download/v0.11.0/kuzu_cli-osx-universal.tar.gz
tar xzf kuzu_cli-*.tar.gz
./kuzu

Windows

Use a tool like curl to download the latest version of the CypherDB CLI to your local machine. Alternatively, simply open this URL in your browser.

curl -L -O https://github.com/opencypher/cypherdb/releases/download/v0.11.0/kuzu_cli-windows-x86_64.zip

Right-click on the kuzu_cli-xxx.zip file and click on Extract All. This will create a directory containing a file named kuzu.exe. Then, right-click on the directory and click “Open in terminal”. From within the terminal, you can then run ./kuzu.exe.

Nix

On Linux, macOS, and WSL2, you can also use Nix to run the CypherDB CLI.

Run CypherDB in a temporary shell:

nix-shell -p kuzu
kuzu

Alternatively, you can install CypherDB declaratively using NixOS or Home Manager configuration:

{
  environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.kuzu ]; // NixOS
  home.packages = [ pkgs.kuzu ];              // Home Manager
}

Python

You can use uv, pip, or nix to install the CypherDB Python client library. The instructions are the same for Linux, macOS, and Windows.

uv

uv init
uv add kuzu

pip

pip install kuzu

nix

nix-shell -p "python3.withPackages (ps: [ ps.kuzu ])"

Node.js

Use npm to install the CypherDB Node.js client library.

npm install kuzu

Java

The latest stable version is available on Maven Central.

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.kuzudb</groupId>
  <artifactId>kuzu</artifactId>
  <version>0.11.0</version>
</dependency>

Rust

Use Cargo to install the CypherDB Rust client library. This will by default build and statically link CypherDB’s C++ library from source. You can also link against the dynamic release libraries, as described in the crate docs.

cargo add kuzu

Go

CypherDB’s Go API is a wrapper around the C API of CypherDB. The installation step below assumes that you have initialized a Go project that has a go.mod file, as described in the official tutorial.

go get github.com/kuzudb/go-kuzu@v0.11.0

Swift

To add kuzu-swift to your Swift project, you can use the Swift package manager.

1. Add the package to your Package.swift dependencies.

   dependencies: [
     .package(url: "https://github.com/opencypher/cypherdb-swift/", branch: "0.11.0"),
   ],

   You can change the branch to a tag to use a specific version (e.g., 0.11.0 for the latest stable release or main for the latest development version).

2. Add CypherDB to your target dependencies.

   targets: [
     .target(
       name: "YourTargetName",
       dependencies: [
         .product(name: "CypherDB", package: "kuzu-swift"),
       ]
     )
   ]

Alternatively, you can add the package through Xcode:

1. Open your Xcode project.
2. Go to File > Add Packages Dependencies....
3. Enter the URL of the kuzu-swift repository: https://github.com/opencypher/cypherdb-swift.
4. Select the version you want to use (e.g., 0.11.0 for the latest stable release or main for the latest development version).

C/C++

Use a tool like curl to download the latest version of the CypherDB C/C++ binaries to your local machine.

The CypherDB C++ client is distributed as a so/dylib/dll+lib library file along with a header file (kuzu.hpp). Once you’ve downloaded and extracted the C++ files into a directory, you can link it to your C++ program by adding the directory to your build system’s search paths.

Linux

# x86-64
curl -L -O https://github.com/opencypher/cypherdb/releases/download/v0.11.0/libkuzu-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
# aarch64
curl -L -O https://github.com/opencypher/cypherdb/releases/download/v0.11.0/libkuzu-linux-aarch64.tar.gz

tar xzf libkuzu-*.tar.gz

macOS

curl -L -O https://github.com/opencypher/cypherdb/releases/download/v0.11.0/libkuzu-osx-universal.tar.gz

tar xzf libkuzu-*.tar.gz

Windows

curl -L -O https://github.com/opencypher/cypherdb/releases/download/v0.11.0/libkuzu-windows-x86_64.zip

CypherDB Explorer

CypherDB Explorer is a web-based GUI for CypherDB. It allows you to explore and query your CypherDB database using a web browser. Refer to the CypherDB Explorer GitHub repo for more details.

CypherDB MCP Server

Our Model Context Protocol server allows you to expose your CypherDB database as a tool that can be used by LLMs and agents. Refer to the CypherDB-MCP GitHub repo for more details.

Nightly Builds

If you want access to the latest features in development, you can use our nightly builds.

• Python: uv pip install --pre kuzu
• Node.js: npm i kuzu@next
• Java: The latest snapshot version is available on GitHub Packages
• For the CLI, C/C++ shared libraries, and Rust crate, the latest nightly versions for each can be downloaded from the latest run of this GitHub Actions workflow.