How to setup n8n on a Raspberry Pi 5 (local setup)

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After trying out the 14-day n8n cloud trial, I was impressed by what it could do. When the trial ended, I still wanted to keep building workflows but wasn’t quite ready to host in the cloud or pay for a subscription just yet. I started looking into other options and after a bit of research, I got n8n running locally on a Raspberry Pi 5.

Not only is it working great, but I’m finding that my development workflows actually run faster on the Pi 5 than they did in the trial. I’m now able to build and test everything locally on my own network, completely free, and without relying on external services.

I put together a full write-up with step-by-step instructions in case anyone else wants to do the same. You’ll find it here along with a video walkthrough:

This all runs locally and privately on the Pi, and has been a great starting point for learning what n8n can do. I’ve added a Q&A section in the guide, so if questions come up, I’ll keep that updated as well.

If you’ve got a Pi 5 (or one lying around), it’s a solid little server for automation projects. Let me know if you have suggestions, and I’ll keep sharing what I learn as I continue building.

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Nice work, the approach you have taken is not what I would do as we won’t be supporting the npm install method for much longer.

Back when I was running n8n on a Pi I used Docker which made life a lot easier for the configuration and management.

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Hey, that sounds quite fun, btw I havn’t tested it, but maybe something like k3’s could work https://k3s.io/ good for lower power devices, or even a dockers build.

Be interesting to see how this comes along :slight_smile:

Samuel

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Hi Jon, thank you for your message, I greatly appreciate your reply. I researched prior to releasing the video/guide and the npm install seemed to be a common method (and recommended by several over Docker). Do you have an idea on the timeline when npm won’t be supported or if there will be an official announcement?