Install Ladybug

Ladybug is an embedded graph database that can be used from the command line and from a variety of programming languages. This page shows all the ways you can install Ladybug. After installation, you can learn how to run Ladybug by creating your first graph.

License

All source code and pre-compiled binaries of Ladybug are distributed under the MIT License. By installing and using Ladybug, you acknowledge and agree to these terms.

Command Line (Shell)

If you don’t need Ladybug embedded in your application, you can use the CLI shell. This is a standalone executable with no dependencies that can be used to interact with a Ladybug database using just Cypher.

Linux

Use a tool like curl to download the latest version of the Ladybug CLI to your local machine.

# x86-64
curl -L -O https://github.com/LadybugDB/ladybug/releases/download/v0.11.0/lbug_cli-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
# aarch64
curl -L -O https://github.com/LadybugDB/ladybug/releases/download/v0.11.0/lbug_cli-linux-aarch64.tar.gz

tar xzf lbug_cli-*.tar.gz

Now you can run Ladybug from the command line.

./lbug

macOS

You can install the Ladybug CLI using Homebrew.

brew install lbug

You can now run Ladybug from the command line.

lbug

Alternatively, you can download the Ladybug CLI directly.

curl -L -O https://github.com/LadybugDB/ladybug/releases/download/v0.11.0/lbug_cli-osx-universal.tar.gz
tar xzf lbug_cli-*.tar.gz
./lbug

Windows

Use a tool like curl to download the latest version of the Ladybug CLI to your local machine. Alternatively, simply open this URL in your browser.

curl -L -O https://github.com/LadybugDB/ladybug/releases/download/v0.11.0/lbug_cli-windows-x86_64.zip

Right-click on the lbug_cli-xxx.zip file and click on Extract All. This will create a directory containing a file named lbug.exe. Then, right-click on the directory and click “Open in terminal”. From within the terminal, you can then run ./lbug.exe.

Nix

On Linux, macOS, and WSL2, you can also use Nix to run the Ladybug CLI.

Run Ladybug in a temporary shell:

nix-shell -p lbug
lbug

Alternatively, you can install Ladybug declaratively using NixOS or Home Manager configuration:

{
  environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.lbug ]; // NixOS
  home.packages = [ pkgs.lbug ];              // Home Manager
}

Python

You can use uv, pip, or nix to install the Ladybug Python client library. The instructions are the same for Linux, macOS, and Windows.

uv

uv init
uv add lbug

pip

pip install lbug

nix

nix-shell -p "python3.withPackages (ps: [ ps.lbug ])"

Node.js

Use npm to install the Ladybug Node.js client library.

npm install lbug

Java

The latest stable version is available on Maven Central.

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.lbugdb</groupId>
  <artifactId>lbug</artifactId>
  <version>0.11.0</version>
</dependency>

Rust

Use Cargo to install the Ladybug Rust client library. This will by default build and statically link Ladybug’s C++ library from source. You can also link against the dynamic release libraries, as described in the crate docs.

cargo add lbug

Go

Ladybug’s Go API is a wrapper around the C API of Ladybug. The installation step below assumes that you have initialized a Go project that has a go.mod file, as described in the official tutorial.

go get github.com/LadybugDB/[email protected]

Swift

To add lbug-swift to your Swift project, you can use the Swift package manager.

1. Add the package to your Package.swift dependencies.

   dependencies: [
     .package(url: "https://github.com/LadybugDB/ladybug-swift/", branch: "0.11.0"),
   ],

   You can change the branch to a tag to use a specific version (e.g., 0.11.0 for the latest stable release or main for the latest development version).

2. Add Ladybug to your target dependencies.

   targets: [
     .target(
       name: "YourTargetName",
       dependencies: [
         .product(name: "Ladybug", package: "lbug-swift"),
       ]
     )
   ]

Alternatively, you can add the package through Xcode:

1. Open your Xcode project.
2. Go to File > Add Packages Dependencies....
3. Enter the URL of the lbug-swift repository: https://github.com/LadybugDB/ladybug-swift.
4. Select the version you want to use (e.g., 0.11.0 for the latest stable release or main for the latest development version).

C/C++

Use a tool like curl to download the latest version of the Ladybug C/C++ binaries to your local machine.

The Ladybug C++ client is distributed as a so/dylib/dll+lib library file along with a header file (lbug.hpp). Once you’ve downloaded and extracted the C++ files into a directory, you can link it to your C++ program by adding the directory to your build system’s search paths.

Linux

# x86-64
curl -L -O https://github.com/LadybugDB/ladybug/releases/download/v0.11.0/liblbug-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
# aarch64
curl -L -O https://github.com/LadybugDB/ladybug/releases/download/v0.11.0/liblbug-linux-aarch64.tar.gz

tar xzf liblbug-*.tar.gz

macOS

curl -L -O https://github.com/LadybugDB/ladybug/releases/download/v0.11.0/liblbug-osx-universal.tar.gz

tar xzf liblbug-*.tar.gz

Windows

curl -L -O https://github.com/LadybugDB/ladybug/releases/download/v0.11.0/liblbug-windows-x86_64.zip

Ladybug Explorer

Ladybug Explorer is a web-based GUI for Ladybug. It allows you to explore and query your Ladybug database using a web browser. Refer to the Ladybug Explorer GitHub repo for more details.

Ladybug MCP Server

Our Model Context Protocol server allows you to expose your Ladybug database as a tool that can be used by LLMs and agents. Refer to the Ladybug-MCP GitHub repo for more details.

Nightly Builds

If you want access to the latest features in development, you can use our nightly builds.

• Python: uv pip install --pre lbug
• Node.js: npm i lbug@next
• Java: The latest snapshot version is available on GitHub Packages
• For the CLI, C/C++ shared libraries, and Rust crate, the latest nightly versions for each can be downloaded from the latest run of this GitHub Actions workflow.