Install - The Crystal Programming Language

Packages for Crystal releases are available from different sources. There are official ones provided the Crystal project, system packages and community-maintained packages. This page gives an overview of available installation methods.
Many Linux distribution provide Crystal in their system packages. It might not be the most recent version though. Third party package managers are typically more up to date.
DEB and RPM packages are available in our own package repository and we provide an installer script for convenience.
Download: aarch64 aarch64-bundled x86_64 x86_64-bundled
Linux-based Docker images and developer tools are also available.
Read more about installing on Linux
The Crystal project provides universal archives for macOS that work on both, Apple Silicon and Intel.
The most popular installation method is via Homebrew.
Crystal is also available in developer tooling on macOS.
Read more about installing on macOS
Windows support is currently a preview and not yet complete, but largely usable.
Official builds are available as a ZIP archive or installer.
Download: x86_64-msvc
Download: aarch64-gnu x86_64-msvc x86_64-gnu
Crystal is also available in developer tooling on Windows.
Read more about installing on Windows
Read more about installing on FreeBSD
Read more about installing on OpenBSD
Nightly builds are the bleeding-edge version of Crystal, being a daily snapshot of the current development status in the master branch. This is inherently less stable than proper a release, but allows trying out new features and testing compatibility with existing code bases. It’s recommended to test against nightlies regularly in order to notice any issues timely and avoid surprises after the next release.
Read more about Nightly Builds
The Crystal compiler is self-hosted, so in order to build it you need a Crystal compiler. Hence from source installation is not an ideal way to get Crystal in the first place. However it is possible to bootstrap from a different platform through cross-compiling.
Read more about Building from Source
Once you have Crystal installed, follow the first steps to get started.
Get help about installing Crystal in the community forum.
Found a typo, or want to help improve this page? Edit on GitHub or file an issue.
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0
Crystal language, born & raised at Manas