The Standalone edition of Confluence. The Standalone edition includes Apache Tomcat as the standalone application server. If you want to install an EAR/WAR edition for deployment on your own existing application server, please refer to the Confluence Installation Guide.
Unix, Linux or Solaris systems. If you are installing Confluence on a Windows or Mac OS X system, please refer to Installing Confluence Standalone Using the Automatic Installer.

Also, please check the version of Confluence which you are installing. Refer to the documentation home page to verify the latest Confluence version and to find documentation for older versions.

On this page:

1. Before you Start

Please check the following points:

Have your Confluence license key ready. You can obtain a trial, free or commercial license now, or retrieve your existing license key.
You must be able to use a command prompt and install Java to continue. If not, please contact your system administrator to assist you or consider the Hosted online evaluation option.
Make sure that you use a Gnu version of zip application - Sun/Solaris and AIX are known to have problems with zip, because they use their own (old) versions instead of the Gnu version.

2. Install the JDK (Java Development Kit)

3. Install X11 Dependencies

4. Download the Confluence Installation File

If you have not downloaded Confluence already, download the Standalone TAR.
Solaris users, please check your unzip program: you must use GNU Tar, not Solaris Tar. Linux or Unix users can use any unzip program to unzip Confluence.
Use your unzip program to unzip the installation file to a directory such as /home/jsmith/confluence-2.7.0-std/.
- Do not use spaces in your directory path.

The directory into which you unzipped the Confluence installation is called the Confluence Installation directory. Next you will define the Confluence Home directory.

5. Define your Confluence Home Directory

Now you need to define the Confluence Home directory. This is where Confluence will store its configuration information, indexes and attachments.
Tip: Another term for 'Home directory' would be 'data directory'.

We suggest using different paths for your installation and home directories. This will facilitate upgrades. Examples of Installation and Home Directories:

Installation directory: /usr/local/confluence-2.7.0-std/
Home directory: /usr/local/confluence-data/

Open your Confluence Installation directory (created when you unzipped Confluence — see above).
Under the Installation directory, find this file: confluence/WEB-INF/classes/confluence-init.properties
Open the confluence-init.properties file in a text editor.
Scroll to the bottom and find this line:
# confluence.home=c:/confluence/data
Remove the '#' and the space at the beginning of this line, so that Confluence no longer regards the line as a comment. The line should now begin with confluence.home
If you decide to change the Confluence Home directory from the default, use an absolute path rather than a symbolic link to specify the path and file name. For example:
confluence.home=/home/jsmith/confluence-data/

6. Check the Ports

If you have another application running on your machine which is using the same ports that Confluence uses by default, you may need to change the port which Confluence will use. For example, if you have a Standalone installation of JIRA running on this machine, JIRA might be already using the port which Confluence requests by default.

By default, Confluence listens on port '8080'. If this port is already in use in your installation, follow these instructions to change the ports:

You will find more information on this page.

7. Select an External Database

This step is optional for evaluation instances of Confluence. It is mandatory for a production instance.

Select one of the supported external databases and follow the corresponding database setup guide. You can learn more about migration from an existing installation or use of the evaluation database here. You will continue to use the Database Setup Guide during the Confluence Setup Wizard. (See step 9 below.)

8. Start Confluence

Go to your Confluence Installation directory (created when you unzipped Confluence — see above).
Under your Confluence Installation directory, open the bin directory and run the startup script: startup.sh.
Once Confluence is running, open a web browser and visit http://localhost:8080/.
Hint: If you changed the port earlier, use the port you specified in step 6 above.

9. Next Step is the Confluence Setup Wizard

The Confluence Setup Wizard should appear in your web browser, prompting you to enter your license key. Follow the instructions on the screens, and read more guidelines on the Confluence Setup Wizard.

If the web browser shows an error instead of the Setup Wizard, check the Installation FAQ.