Installation

Install Bun on macOS, Linux, or Windows using the install script, a package manager, or Docker.

Bun ships as a single, dependency-free executable. Pick the install method that fits your platform.

After installation, verify it worked by running bun --version in a new terminal window.

Install Bun

macOS & Linux

Run the official install script:

curl -fsSL https://bun.com/install | bash

The script downloads the correct binary for your system, places it in ~/.bun/bin, and adds it to your PATH.

Linux users — the unzip package is required. Install it first with sudo apt install unzip (Debian/Ubuntu) or the equivalent for your distro. Kernel version 5.6 or higher is strongly recommended; 5.1 is the minimum. Check with uname -r.

Windows

Run the install script in PowerShell:

powershell -c "irm bun.sh/install.ps1 | iex"

Bun requires Windows 10 version 1809 or later. For the best experience on Windows, use WSL 2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) and install Bun inside the Linux environment.

Package managers

npm

npm install -g bun

Docker

Bun provides an official Docker image for Linux x64 and arm64:

docker pull oven/bun
docker run --rm --init --ulimit memlock=-1:-1 oven/bun

Several image variants are available:

docker pull oven/bun:debian
docker pull oven/bun:slim
docker pull oven/bun:distroless
docker pull oven/bun:alpine

Verify the installation

Open a new terminal window and run:

bun --version
# 1.x.y

bun --revision
# 1.x.y+b7982ac13189

bun --revision shows the exact commit of oven-sh/bun that you’re running, which is useful when reporting bugs.

If you see command not found, your shell may not have picked up the updated PATH. Open a new terminal window, or manually add ~/.bun/bin to your PATH (see below).

Add Bun to your PATH manually

macOS & Linux

1. Find your shell

   echo $SHELL
   # /bin/zsh  or  /bin/bash  or  /bin/fish
   
2. Open your shell config file

   • bash: ~/.bashrc
   • zsh: ~/.zshrc
   • fish: ~/.config/fish/config.fish
3. Add the Bun directory

   Add these lines to your config file:

   export BUN_INSTALL="$HOME/.bun"
   export PATH="$BUN_INSTALL/bin:$PATH"
   
4. Reload your config

   source ~/.zshrc   # or ~/.bashrc
   

Windows

1. Check the binary is there

   & "$env:USERPROFILE\.bun\bin\bun" --version
   

   If this works but bun --version doesn’t, Bun isn’t on your PATH.

2. Add Bun to your PATH

   Run this in PowerShell to update your user PATH permanently:

   [System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable(
     "Path",
     [System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("Path", "User") + ";$env:USERPROFILE\.bun\bin",
     [System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::User
   )
   
3. Restart your terminal

   Close and reopen your terminal, then verify with bun --version.

Upgrade

Once installed, Bun can upgrade itself:

bun upgrade

Homebrew users — use brew upgrade bun to avoid conflicts with Homebrew’s version tracking.

Scoop users — use scoop update bun instead.

To upgrade to the latest canary build (built from every commit to main):

bun upgrade --canary

# Switch back to the latest stable release
bun upgrade --stable

Canary builds are untested pre-releases. They automatically upload crash reports to the Bun team to help fix bugs faster.

Install a specific version

macOS & Linux

Pass the git tag to the install script:

curl -fsSL https://bun.com/install | bash -s "bun-v1.3.3"

Windows

Pass the version number to the PowerShell script:

iex "& {$(irm https://bun.sh/install.ps1)} -Version 1.3.3"

Supported platforms

Platform	Architecture	Notes
macOS	x64, arm64	Requires macOS 13.0 or later
Linux	x64, arm64	Kernel 5.6+ recommended; 5.1 minimum
Windows	x64	Windows 10 1809+; WSL 2 recommended
Docker	x64, arm64	Official images at oven/bun on Docker Hub

CPU requirements

The standard x64 binary targets the Haswell architecture and requires AVX2 support (Intel 4th-gen Core / AMD Excavator or newer). If you see an “Illegal Instruction” error on older hardware, use the baseline build instead:

curl -fsSL https://bun.com/install | bash -s "bun-v$(bun --version)-baseline"

The baseline build targets Nehalem (Intel 1st-gen Core / AMD Bulldozer) and requires only SSE4.2.

Uninstall

macOS & Linux

Remove the ~/.bun directory:

rm -rf ~/.bun

Then remove the BUN_INSTALL and PATH lines from your shell config file.

Windows

Run the bundled uninstall script:

powershell -c "~\.bun\uninstall.ps1"

Package managers

npm

npm uninstall -g bun