Get started with Neurodesk

Choose how you want to run Neurodesk. Each option below links to setup instructions for that platform.

Run in the cloud

No installation. Sign in and start working in your browser.

Neurodesk Play Free hosted Neurodesk for evaluation and lightweight workloads.

Other hosting options GitHub Codespaces, Google Cloud Run, and managed web apps.

Install locally

Run Neurodesktop on your own machine. Best for serious workloads.

Neurodesk App Cross-platform desktop installer. Recommended starting point.

Run on HPC Pre-built instructions for shared computing clusters.

Use individual tools

Skip the full desktop and use just the containers you need.

Neurocontainers Run tools individually with Docker or Singularity.

Neurocommand Command-line tool manager for HPC and Linux workflows.

Installation examples

We show a couple of specific worked examples on Installations for systems including Bunya, Sherlock, Nectar, Great Lakes, and Ubuntu 24.04.

Releases

Note the release date of the Neurodesktop container image during installation. It appears at the end of the image tag in the docker run command:

sudo docker run \
  --shm-size=1gb -it --privileged --user=root --name neurodesktop \
  -v ~/neurodesktop-storage:/neurodesktop-storage \
  --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway \
  -e OLLAMA_HOST="http://host.docker.internal:11434" \
  -e NB_UID="$(id -u)" -e NB_GID="$(id -g)" \
  -p 8888:8888 \
  -e NEURODESKTOP_VERSION=2026-04-28 \
  ghcr.io/neurodesk/neurodesktop/neurodesktop:2026-04-28

The current stable release is 2026-04-28. We regularly update Neurodesktop for performance and software updates. Check the release history for past releases. To upgrade your container, replace the release number with your desired version. For replicable analyses, share the stable release number you used so others can recreate your environment.

Video tutorial

A 14-minute walkthrough on getting started:

You can also view the Neurodesk overview slideshow (or the PDF version) with interactive navigation.