Install Lightdash

Don't want to worry about self-hosting? Sign up for Lightdash Cloud for a fully-managed Lightdash instance.

Choose your preferred environment to self-host Lightdash:

1. Run Lightdash on your local machine to try out Lightdash for yourself without any collaborators.
2. Deploy Lightdash to Heroku with 1-click to get a cloud deployment for your whole team with minimum effort.
3. Manually install Lightdash in production to setup Lightdash in your preferred production environment.

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Getting set up on Lightdash Cloud

Want to have a production Lightdash instance, but not comfortable with self-hosting?

You can sign up to our waitlist for Lightdash Cloud!

With Lightdash Cloud, you get a Lightdash instance that you can share all your insights with your team and you don't have to worry about any of the setup for hosting the instance yourself. So, if you're not too sure about all of this container, Heroku and cloud-platforms business, or you're just not interested in the overhead of hosting your BI yourself, then Lightdash Cloud might be a good option for you :)

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Deploy locally with our installation script

Our installation script is the simplest way to install Lightdash if you only want to run Lightdash on your local machine (that means, you won't be able to share the things you build in Lightdash with anyone else):

Production deployments

For production deployments check the Deploy manually instructions.

info

This script is going to install docker and docker compose. If you want to use a docker alternative, see Deploy manually instructions.

1. Clone the Lightdash repository

Clone the Lightdash code to your local machine. This will create a new directory called ./lightdash (the Lightdash directory).

# Clone the Lightdash repo
git clone https://github.com/lightdash/lightdash
cd lightdash
# A new directory called "lightdash" should appear

2. Install & Launch Lightdash

When running the install script you have two choices:

1. Fast install (recommended): will automatically configure Lightdash with sensible defaults. You must host your dbt project on github/gitlab to use this method.
2. Custom install: gives more customisation including connecting Lightdash to a dbt project on your local machine.

./install.sh
# follow cli instructions

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Deploy to Heroku

Click to deploy the latest version of Lightdash to heroku. This provides a secure, production deployment.

1. Once click deploy to Heroku

Note if you don't have an account, you'll be prompted to signup. It's free to deploy Lightdash!

2. Launch Lightdash

Heroku will show that it's setting up and deploying Lightdash. When it's complete you should see an option to view your Lightdash app.

3. Setup your admin account and Lightdash project

As the first user for Lightdash, you'll be prompted to create an admin account to secure your instance. Then, you'll get started with creating your Lightdash project. You can follow along with the instructions for setting up your Lightdash project here: #page to instructions for Lightdash project setup guide

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Deploy manually

This is the recommended way to install and run Lightdash in production.

Using docker compose

Lightdash docker compose environment variables:

Name	Type	Default	Required	Description
PGHOST	string	auto generated	false	postgres hostname
PGPORT	number	5432	false	Postgres port
PGUSER	string	postgres	false	Postgres user
PGPASSWORD	string		true	Postgres password
PGDATABASE	string	postgres	false	Postgres database name
SECURE_COOKIES	boolean	false	false	Secure cookies
TRUST_PROXY	boolean	false	false	Trust the reverse proxy when setting secure cookies (via the "X-Forwarded-Proto" header)
LIGHTDASH_SECRET	string		true	This is the secret used to sign the session ID cookie and to encrypt sensitive information. Do not share this secret!
PORT	number	8080	false	Port for Lightdash
DBT_PROJECT_DIR	string	.	false	Path to your local dbt project. Only set this value if you want to use a dbt project from the same machine

1. Clone the Lightdash repository

Clone the Lightdash code to your local machine. This will create a new directory called ./lightdash (the Lightdash directory).

# Clone the Lightdash repo
git clone https://github.com/lightdash/lightdash
cd lightdash

2. Create containers

LIGHTDASH_SECRET="not very secret" PGPASSWORD="password" docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml up --detach --remove-orphans

Using docker images

info

If you're using podman replace docker with podman in the commands mentioned.

1. Start a Postgres container

# Example data:
# Username: postgres
# Password: mysecretpassword
# Database name: postgres
# Port: 5432

docker run --name lightdash-db -p "5432:5432" \
    -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=mysecretpassword -d postgres

2. Start Lightdash container

Lightdash environment variables:

Name	Type	Default	Required	Description
PGHOST	string		true	Postgres hostname
PGPORT	number		true	Postgres port
PGUSER	string		true	Postgres user
PGPASSWORD	string		true	Postgres password
PGDATABASE	string		true	Postgres database name
LIGHTDASH_SECRET	string		true	This is the secret used to sign the session ID cookie and to encrypt sensitive information. Do not share this secret!
SECURE_COOKIES	boolean	false	false	Secure cookies
TRUST_PROXY	boolean	false	false	Trust the reverse proxy when setting secure cookies (via the "X-Forwarded-Proto" header)

info

If you want to use a dbt project from the same machine, you will need to set a volume to /usr/app/dbt. Example: -v ~/my/dbt/path:/usr/app/dbt

# Example data:
# DB Host: 192.168.0.1
# DB Port: 5432
# DB Username: postgres
# DB Password: mysecretpassword
# DB name: postgres
# Lightdash secret: not very secret
# Lightdash port: 8080

docker run --name lightdash-app \
    -e PGHOST=192.168.0.1 -e PGPORT=5432 \
    -e PGUSER=postgres -e PGPASSWORD=mysecretpassword \
    -e PGDATABASE=postgres -e LIGHTDASH_SECRET="not very secret" \
    -p 8080:8080 \
    -d lightdash/lightdash:latest