Start trial

Install

AthenaDB is a native database — it installs and runs directly on your operating system. Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris are all available today. See Platforms for the full picture.

You can always install the way you prefer: a graphical installer for a guided setup, your package manager, or the command line for automation.

Linux

AthenaDB runs natively across the major distributions — Debian and Ubuntu, Red Hat and Fedora, and SUSE. Debian/Ubuntu and Red Hat are each built and validated against the full test suite on their own systems, and a Red Hat build runs across RHEL 9 and 10.

Debian / Ubuntu (apt):

sudo apt install athenadb
athenadb version

Red Hat / Fedora / SUSE (rpm):

sudo dnf install athenadb   # or: sudo zypper install athenadb
athenadb version

To install a downloaded package file directly:

sudo dnf install ./athenadb-<version>.el9.x86_64.rpm

Prefer a guided setup? Run the graphical installer and follow the prompts — no command line required.

Solaris

AthenaDB runs natively on Oracle Solaris 11.4, built and validated on Solaris itself, and ships as a proper Solaris package — dependencies are resolved for you.

sudo pkg install -g ./athenadb-<version>.p5p athenadb
athenadb --version

A portable tarball is also available if you would rather not install a package.

Windows

AthenaDB runs natively on Windows Desktop and Windows Server.

  • Graphical installer — download and run it; that's it.
  • Command line — for admins and automation.
athenadb version

On Windows, AthenaDB integrates with Active Directory / Entra ID for enterprise identity and access, and protects your encryption keys with Windows-native secure key storage.

FreeBSD

AthenaDB runs natively on FreeBSD 15, built with the base system's own Clang and validated against the full test suite on FreeBSD itself. It installs as a real FreeBSD package, depending only on the base system's C++ runtime.

sudo pkg add ./AthenaDB-<version>-FreeBSD.pkg
athenadb --version

macOS

AthenaDB runs natively on Apple Silicon, built and validated against the full test suite on macOS itself. The installer is signed and notarized with Apple, so it installs without Gatekeeper warnings and the notarization ticket validates even offline.

Double-click the .pkg, or install it from the command line:

sudo installer -pkg AthenaDB-<version>-arm64.pkg -target /
athenadb --version

On macOS your database encryption key is held in the Keychain rather than a file on disk, so it is protected by the OS the same way Windows uses its native key store.

Connecting to a server

AthenaDB Server accepts connections the way you'd expect — with a familiar default port and a choice of transports, identical on every platform:

  • TCP/IP on default port 1440 (configurable to any port you choose), secured with TLS.
  • Local connections over a named pipe on Windows, or a Unix domain socket on macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris — with the same behavior everywhere. Local connections can use your OS sign-in, so your Windows/Active Directory (or Linux) identity maps straight to your database permissions.

Each transport can be turned on or off, and clients can use whichever they prefer.

Next