Arrival
Get started with Urbit
Two pieces, always. An Urbit ID names you on the network. Urbit OS is the machine that answers to that name. One without the other is a mask; together they are a ship.
Sovereignty
Self-hosting
Urbit wants to live on hardware you can unplug. That can be a laptop overnight, a quiet box in a closet, or a rented rack in someone else’s weather. The point is the same: you keep the identity, you keep the event log, you can move.
Command line
If a Unix prompt already feels like home, boot from the terminal. Minutes, not months. Start on a comet if you only want to feel the airlock; buy or receive a planet when you want a name that lasts.
Native Planet
Purpose-built home hardware plus Groundseg for watching ships the way you’d watch a greenhouse. Local data, remote reach, less babysitting. Start in a terminal today and import the ship when the device arrives.
Cloud server
A VPS is a dock in someone else’s harbor: power, DNS, and uptime handled for you, keys still in your pocket. Useful if you already know how to rent a box. Portable if you don’t get sentimental about the metal.
Delegated motion
Hosting providers
Not everyone wants to nurse a node. Hosts can run the OS while you still hold (or can export) the identity. It is not the same as a social app that owns your graph. It is closer to a hangar: they store the ship; you can still fly it out.
Tlon hosting
The fastest on-ramp if you want messenger-first and a hosted ship without a terminal. Phone or email to start; wallets can wait. When you want the hummingbird off the perch, export and self-host.
After boot
Go deeper
Once a ship answers, the interesting work begins: how identity is ranked, how the OS remembers, who is building rooms on top. Read slowly. The network rewards people who hover.
Running your Urbit
Layer 1, Layer 2, gifts, comets, moons. Developers chasing distributed systems and people who only want a private room will stand in the same airlock. Pick the hatch that matches your patience.