Bun Documentation - W3cubDocs

Overview

Bun ships as a single, dependency-free executable. You can install it via script, package manager, or Docker across macOS, Linux, and Windows.

After installation, verify with bun --version and bun --revision.

Installation

macOS & Linux
Windows
Package Managers
Docker

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

Linux users The unzip package is required to install Bun. Use sudo apt install unzip to install the unzip package. Kernel version 5.6 or higher is strongly recommended, but the minimum is 5.1. Use uname -r to check Kernel version.

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

Bun requires Windows 10 version 1809 or later.

For support and discussion, please join the #windows channel on our Discord.

npmHomebrewScoopnpm install -g bun # the last `npm` command you'll ever need

Bun provides a Docker image that supports both Linux x64 and arm64.

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

Image Variants

There are also image variants for different operating systems:

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

To check that Bun was installed successfully, open a new terminal window and run:

bun --version
# Output: 1.x.y

# See the precise commit of `oven-sh/bun` that you're using
bun --revision
# Output: 1.x.y+b7982ac13189

If you’ve installed Bun but are seeing a command not found error, you may have to manually add the installation directory (~/.bun/bin) to your PATH.

Add Bun to your PATH

macOS & Linux
Windows

Determine which shell you're using

echo $SHELL
# /bin/zsh  or /bin/bash or /bin/fish

Open your shell configuration file

For bash: ~/.bashrc
For zsh: ~/.zshrc
For fish: ~/.config/fish/config.fish

Add the Bun directory to PATH

Add this line to your configuration file:

export BUN_INSTALL="$HOME/.bun"
export PATH="$BUN_INSTALL/bin:$PATH"

Reload your shell configuration

source ~/.bashrc  # or ~/.zshrc

Determine if the bun binary is properly installed

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

If the command runs successfully but bun --version is not recognized, it means that bun is not in your system’s PATH. To fix this, open a Powershell terminal and run the following command:

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

Restart your terminal

After running the command, restart your terminal and test with bun --version

bun --version

Upgrading

Once installed, the binary can upgrade itself:

bun upgrade

Homebrew users
To avoid conflicts with Homebrew, use brew upgrade bun instead.Scoop users
To avoid conflicts with Scoop, use scoop update bun instead.

Canary Builds

-> View canary build Bun automatically releases an (untested) canary build on every commit to main. To upgrade to the latest canary build:

# Upgrade to latest canary
bun upgrade --canary

# Switch back to stable
bun upgrade --stable

The canary build is useful for testing new features and bug fixes before they’re released in a stable build. To help the Bun team fix bugs faster, canary builds automatically upload crash reports to Bun’s team.

Installing Older Versions

Since Bun is a single binary, you can install older versions by re-running the installer script with a specific version.

Linux & macOS
Windows

To install a specific version, pass the git tag to the install script:

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

On Windows, pass the version number to the PowerShell install script:

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

Direct Downloads

To download Bun binaries directly, visit the releases page on GitHub.

Latest Version Downloads

Linux x64

Standard Linux x64 binary

Linux x64 Baseline

For older CPUs without AVX2

Windows x64

Standard Windows binary

Windows x64 Baseline

For older CPUs without AVX2

Windows ARM64

Windows on ARM (Snapdragon, etc.)

macOS ARM64

Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3)

macOS x64

Intel Macs

Linux ARM64

ARM64 Linux systems

Musl Binaries

For distributions without glibc (Alpine Linux, Void Linux):

If you encounter an error like bun: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6: version GLIBC_2.29 not found, try using the musl binary. Bun’s install script automatically chooses the correct binary for your system.

CPU Requirements

Bun has specific CPU requirements based on the binary you’re using:

Standard Builds
Baseline Builds

x64 binaries target the Haswell CPU architecture (AVX and AVX2 instructions required)

Platform	Intel Requirement	AMD Requirement
x64	Haswell (4th gen Core) or newer	Excavator or newer

x64-baseline binaries target the Nehalem architecture for older CPUs

Platform	Intel Requirement	AMD Requirement
x64-baseline	Nehalem (1st gen Core) or newer	Bulldozer or newer

Baseline builds are slower than regular builds. Use them only if you encounter an “Illegal Instruction” error.

Bun does not support CPUs older than the baseline target, which mandates the SSE4.2 extension. macOS requires version 13.0 or later.

Uninstall

To remove Bun from your system:

macOS & Linux
Windows
Package Managers

rm -rf ~/.bun

powershell -c ~\.bun\uninstall.ps1

npmHomebrewScoopnpm uninstall -g bun