Install Kuzu

Kuzu 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 Kuzu. After installation, you can learn how to run Kuzu by creating your first graph.

License

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

Command Line (Shell)

If you don’t need Kuzu 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 Kuzu database using just Cypher.

Linux

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

# x86-64
curl -L -O https://github.com/kuzudb/kuzu/releases/download/v0.11.3/kuzu_cli-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
# aarch64
curl -L -O https://github.com/kuzudb/kuzu/releases/download/v0.11.3/kuzu_cli-linux-aarch64.tar.gz

tar xzf kuzu_cli-*.tar.gz

Now you can run Kuzu from the command line.

./kuzu

macOS

You can install the Kuzu CLI using Homebrew.

brew install kuzu

You can now run Kuzu from the command line.

kuzu

Alternatively, you can download the Kuzu CLI directly.

curl -L -O https://github.com/kuzudb/kuzu/releases/download/v0.11.3/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 Kuzu CLI to your local machine. Alternatively, simply open this URL in your browser.

curl -L -O https://github.com/kuzudb/kuzu/releases/download/v0.11.3/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 Kuzu CLI.

Run Kuzu in a temporary shell:

nix-shell -p kuzu
kuzu

Alternatively, you can install Kuzu 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 Kuzu 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 Kuzu 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>0.11.3</version>
</dependency>

Rust

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

cargo add kuzu

Go

Kuzu’s Go API is a wrapper around the C API of Kuzu. 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@v0.11.3

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/kuzudb/kuzu-swift/", branch: "0.11.3"),
   ],

   You can change the branch to a tag to use a specific version (e.g., 0.11.3 for the latest stable release or main for the latest development version).

2. Add Kuzu to your target dependencies.

   targets: [
     .target(
       name: "YourTargetName",
       dependencies: [
         .product(name: "Kuzu", 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/kuzudb/kuzu-swift.
4. Select the version you want to use (e.g., 0.11.3 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 Kuzu C/C++ binaries to your local machine.

The Kuzu 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/kuzudb/kuzu/releases/download/v0.11.3/libkuzu-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
# aarch64
curl -L -O https://github.com/kuzudb/kuzu/releases/download/v0.11.3/libkuzu-linux-aarch64.tar.gz

tar xzf libkuzu-*.tar.gz

macOS

curl -L -O https://github.com/kuzudb/kuzu/releases/download/v0.11.3/libkuzu-osx-universal.tar.gz

tar xzf libkuzu-*.tar.gz

Windows

curl -L -O https://github.com/kuzudb/kuzu/releases/download/v0.11.3/libkuzu-windows-x86_64.zip

Kuzu Explorer

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

Kuzu MCP Server

Our Model Context Protocol server allows you to expose your Kuzu database as a tool that can be used by LLMs and agents. Refer to the Kuzu-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.