Docker Compose Installation Guide

Docker Compose installation is recommended for most use cases. It's the easiest, simplest, and most reliable method to get started.

If you prefer to watch a video, we have video guides for Windows and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

Installation and Configuration

Preparation

Start by cloning the repository or downloading it to your desired location:

  git clone https://github.com/danny-avila/LibreChat.git

Docker Installation

Install Docker on your system. Docker Desktop is recommended for managing your Docker containers.

LibreChat Configuration

Before running LibreChat with Docker, you need to configure some settings:

Provide all necessary credentials in the .env file before the next step.
Docker will read this env file. See the /.env.example file for reference.
If you want to change the docker-compose.yml file, please create a docker-compose.override.yml file based on the docker-compose.override.yml.example . This allows you to update without having to modify docker-compose.yml .
Either create an empty librechat.yaml file or use the example from librechat.example.yaml .

AI Setup (Required)

At least one AI endpoint should be setup for use.

Custom Endpoints & Configuration (Optional)

Allows you to customize AI endpoints, such as Mistral AI, and other settings to suit your specific needs.

Manage Your MongoDB Database (Optional)

Safely access and manage your MongoDB database using Mongo Express

User Authentication System Setup (Optional)

How to set up the user/auth system and Google login.

Running LibreChat

Once you have completed all the setup, you can start the LibreChat application by running the command docker compose up in your terminal. After running this command, you can access the LibreChat application at http://localhost:3080 .

Note: MongoDB does not support older ARM CPUs like those found in Raspberry Pis. However, you can make it work by setting MongoDB’s version to mongo:4.4.18 in docker-compose.yml, the most recent version compatible with

That's it! If you need more detailed information on configuring your compose file, see my notes below.

Updating LibreChat

As of v0.7.0+, Docker installations transitioned from building images locally to using prebuilt images hosted on Github Container registry .

You can still build the image locally, as shown in the commented commands below. More info on building the image locally in the Docker Compose Override Section .

The following commands will fetch the latest LibreChat project changes, including any necessary changes to the docker compose files, as well as the latest prebuilt images.

# Stop the running container(s)
docker compose down

# Pull latest project changes
git pull

# Pull the latest LibreChat image (default setup)
docker compose pull

# If building the LibreChat image Locally, build without cache (legacy setup)
# docker compose build --no-cache

# Start LibreChat
docker compose up

If you're having issues running the above commands, you can try a comprehensive approach instead:

Note: you may need to prefix commands with sudo according to your environment permissions.

# Stop the container (if running)
docker compose down

# Switch to the repo's main branch
git checkout main

# Pull the latest changes to the main branch from Github
git pull

# Prune all LibreChat Docker images
docker rmi librechat:latest

# Optional: Remove all unused dangling Docker images.
# Be careful, as this will delete all dangling docker images on your
# computer, also those not created by LibreChat!
docker image prune -f

# If building the LibreChat image Locally, build without cache (legacy setup)
# docker compose build --no-cache

# Pull the latest image (default setup)
docker compose pull

# Start LibreChat
docker compose up

Advanced Settings

Config notes for docker-compose.yml file

Modification to the docker-compose.yml should be made with docker-compose.override.yml whenever possible to prevent conflicts when updating. You can create a new file named docker-compose.override.yml in the same directory as your main docker-compose.yml file for LibreChat, where you can set your .env variables as needed under environment , or modify the default configuration provided by the main docker-compose.yml , without the need to directly edit or duplicate the whole file. The file docker-compose.override.yml.example gives some examples of the most common reconfiguration options used.

For more info see:

Our quick guide:
- Docker Override
The official docker documentation:
Any environment variables set in your compose file will override variables with the same name in your .env file. Note that the following variables are necessary to include in the compose file so they work in the docker environment, so they are included for you.

    env_file:
      - .env
    environment:
      - HOST=0.0.0.0
      - MONGO_URI=mongodb://mongodb:27017/LibreChat
# ...
      - MEILI_HOST=http://meilisearch:7700
# ...
    env_file:
      - .env
    environment:
      - MEILI_HOST=http://meilisearch:7700

If you want your docker install to reflect changes made to your local folder, you can build the image locally using this method:
- Create a new file named docker-compose.override.yml in the same directory as your main docker-compose.yml with this content:
```
version: '3.4'

services:
  api:
    image: librechat
    build:
      context: .
      target: node
```
- Then use docker compose build as you would normally

Create a MongoDB database (Not required if you'd like to use the local database installed by Docker)

⚠️ Note: If you're having trouble, before creating a new issue, please search for similar ones on our #issues thread on our discord or our troubleshooting discussion on our Discussions page. If you don't find a relevant issue, feel free to create a new one and provide as much detail as possible.