Installing Webiny
In this lesson, we will guide you through the process of installing Webiny on your local machine. By the end of this lesson you'll have a Webiny instance, but we won't be able to access it just yet. In the next lesson, we will cover how to deploy Webiny to AWS and access the admin panel.
In this lesson...
Here are the topics we'll cover
Prerequisites for installing Webiny.
Step-by-step installation guide.
Configuring your Webiny instance.
Prerequisites
Before we begin the installation process, ensure that you have the following prerequisites in place:
- Node.js: Make sure you have Node.js (version 20 or higher) installed on your machine. If you don't have it installed, we recommend using Node Version Manager (nvm) to install and manage your Node.js versions.
- Yarn: Yarn package manager installed globally. You can install it by following the instructions on the official Yarn website.
- AWS Account with programmatic access: An active AWS account is required to deploy Webiny. If you don't have one, you can create it for free at aws.amazon.com.
For the purposes of this course, you can use the AWS Free Tier, which provides limited access to AWS services at no cost for the first 12 months. This will be more than sufficient for learning and experimenting with Webiny.
If you don't have an AWS account or need help setting up programmatic access, refer to this page on Webiny Docs portal: AWS Account Setup
Installation Steps
Once you have all the prerequisites in place, we recommend creating a new Webiny project using create-webiny-project - a tool that sets everything up automatically for you. So, in your terminal of choice, run the following command:
From there, follow the on-screen setup instructions, which includes answering a couple of project-related questions - please see the details in the next section.
Configuring Your Webiny Instance
During the installation process, you will be prompted to configure your Webiny instance. This includes setting up your AWS credentials, choosing a project name, and selecting the desired region for deployment.
One of the prompts will ask you to choose a database for your Webiny instance. You can choose between two options:
- Amazon DynamoDB - for small and medium sized projects)
- Amazon DynamoDB + Amazon OpenSearch - for large / enterprise-level projects
For the purposes of this course, we recommend selecting Amazon DynamoDB. This is a fully serverless cost-per usage database with a generous free tier, making it ideal for learning and experimentation without incurring any cost.
In case of a production project, make sure you pick the appropriate database option based on your project's needs.
YOU CANNOT CHANGE THE DATABASE TYPE LATER.
If you're unsure if you project will grow to a large scale, it's safer to pick the DynamoDB + OpenSearch option right away and start with a smaller OpenSearch instance, which you can later scale up as needed without any downtime.
It's also important to note that Webiny, by default installs all its applications (like Headless CMS, Website Builder, File Manager, etc) during the initial setup. This is the recommended approach for most users, especially when starting out. Down the line, you can always add or remove applications as needed. Depending on your license type, some applications may not be available.
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