Installation

Using a standalone script

Node.js is not preinstalled

On POSIX systems, you may install pnpm even if you don't have Node.js installed, using the following script:

curl -fsSL https://get.pnpm.io/install.sh | PNPM_VERSION=6.32.11 sh -

If you don't have curl installed, you would like to use wget:

wget -qO- https://get.pnpm.io/install.sh | PNPM_VERSION=6.32.11 sh -

On Windows (PowerShell):

$env:PNPM_VERSION='6.32.11' ; iwr https://get.pnpm.io/install.ps1 -useb | iex

You may use the pnpm env command then to install Node.js.

Node.js is preinstalled

On Linux or macOS:

curl -f https://get.pnpm.io/v6.16.js | node - add --global pnpm@latest-6

On Windows (PowerShell):

Invoke-WebRequest 'https://get.pnpm.io/v6.16.js' -UseBasicParsing -o pnpm.js; node pnpm.js add --global pnpm@6.32.11; Remove-Item pnpm.js

The standalone script is signed. Here's how to verify it.

Using Homebrew

If you have the package manager installed, you can install pnpm using the following command:

brew install pnpm

Using Scoop

If you have Scoop installed, you can install pnpm using the following command:

scoop install nodejs-lts pnpm

Using Corepack

Since v16.13, Node.js is shipping Corepack for managing package managers. This is an experimental feature, so you need to enable it by running:

corepack enable

This will automatically install pnpm on your system. However, it probably won't be the latest version of pnpm. To upgrade it, check what is the latest pnpm version and run:

corepack prepare pnpm@6.32.11 --activate

Using npm

npm install -g pnpm@latest-6

Via npx resolution

npx pnpm add -g pnpm

Upgrading

Once you have installed pnpm, there is no need to use other package managers to update it. You can upgrade pnpm using itself, like so:

pnpm add -g pnpm

tip

Do you wanna use pnpm on CI servers? See: Continuous Integration.

Compatibility

Here is a list of past pnpm versions with respective Node.js version support.

Node.js	pnpm 1	pnpm 2	pnpm 3	pnpm 4	pnpm 5	pnpm 6
Node.js 4	✔️	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Node.js 6	✔️	✔️	❌	❌	❌	❌
Node.js 8	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌	❌	❌
Node.js 10	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌
Node.js 12	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Node.js 14	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Node.js 16	?	?	?️	?️	?️	✔️

Troubleshooting

If pnpm is broken and you cannot fix it by reinstalling, you might need to remove it manually from the PATH.

Let's assume you have the following error when running pnpm install:

C:\src>pnpm install
internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:883
  throw err;
  ^



Error: Cannot find module 'C:\Users\Bence\AppData\Roaming\npm\pnpm-global\4\node_modules\pnpm\bin\pnpm.js'
←[90m    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:880:15)←[39m
←[90m    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:725:27)←[39m
←[90m    at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (internal/modules/run_main.js:72:12)←[39m
←[90m    at internal/main/run_main_module.js:17:47←[39m {
  code: ←[32m'MODULE_NOT_FOUND'←[39m,
  requireStack: []
}

First, try to find the location of pnpm by running: which pnpm. If you're on Windows, run this command in Git Bash. You'll get the location of the pnpm command, for instance:

$ which pnpm
/c/Program Files/nodejs/pnpm

Now that you know where the pnpm CLI is, open that directory and remove any pnpm-related files (pnpm.cmd, pnpx.cmd, pnpm, etc). Once done, install pnpm again and it should work as expected.

Uninstalling pnpm

If you need to remove the pnpm CLI from your system and any files it has written to your disk, see Uninstalling pnpm.