# To install Node-Red globally or not to

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/to-install-node-red-globally-or-not-to/216>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [17 May 2018 17:33 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/to-install-node-red-globally-or-not-to/216 "2018-05-17T17:33:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![TotallyInformation](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/totallyinformation/32/31_2.png) [@TotallyInformation](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/TotallyInformation)\
**Post date:** [17 May 2018 21:12 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/to-install-node-red-globally-or-not-to/216/2 "2018-05-17T21:12:14Z")

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In my personal opinion, the only downside is the inability to run Dave’s excellent update script (if you are running on Linux). 😄

In truth, for beginners at least, your approach is slightly more complex to start. You do, of course, have to translate many install instructions and other help information as most will assume a standard installation.

There is one more disadvantage. You need to create your own startup command. The default installation on Linux at least (certainly on a Raspberry Pi) automatically creates a systemd startup script for you. Installed this way, you have to do that for yourself.

For myself, I’ve long run Node-RED as a standard installation (not global) on my “live” system which is on a Pi. NR is installed in a folder under the default Pi user’s home folder and the userDir for Node-RED (normally `~/.node-red` is installed in a folder called `.data` under Node-RED’s folder.

This makes it very easy to back up the whole thing including Node-RED itself and all the data and modules. Something that has saved me a lot of time and heartache on the few occasions where major updates to Node-RED have caused serious issues (generally doesn’t seem to happen any more! Yay Nick & Dave!) .

The other advantages are that you can run multiple instances of Node-RED in parallel if you wish. Also, those instances can be completely different versions of Node-RED. Great if you need some flows using the latest version but have some legacy flows that don’t yet work on the latest. With the introduction of `npx`, you could even run different instances using different versions of Node.JS.

The final advantage is that you are not having to use a global npm install which can introduce security issues onto your server platform. Installing locally is the “Node” way and generally always recommended except when installing a Node.JS module that provides a command line interface that you might want to use as a system command.

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