Local Installation

Time to get your hands dirty. The installation may be slightly more technical than what you are used to, but by following along, you should have BB up and running in no time.

Note: some Windows users run into problems when trying to do the installation. This typically happens if they don’t have Administrator rights. If you’re on Windows, make sure you do have Administrator rights set up on your Windows account. For more information, see Windows 11 or Windows 10.

Start the installation by following these three steps:

Note: make sure you have installed Node.js version 16 or above.

Install Balance Bot

BB comes with an installer, which needs to be downloaded and stored on your PC. The installer will then download and install the actual BB application. You can also use the installer to conveniently install future BB updates.

Watch the following video to learn how to install BB, or follow the instructions further down.

After downloading the BB installer above, follow these steps:

1. Unzip the file and copy/move the balance-bot folder to a place that’s easily accessible. It’s recommended to go for the root of your drive, so the installer is available in c:\balance-bot

Note: make sure that your PC’s clock is automatically synchronized. You can enable this in the Windows / macOS clock settings. If your PC’s clock is out of sync, the exchange will not accept any requests and BB cannot function properly.

BB is now installed on your system. Well done, the hard part is over!

Starting Balance Bot

To start BB, from the same folder (e.g. c:\balance-bot), type: node bb

Then open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

NOTE: make sure that you stop BB (see below) before putting to sleep, switching off, or rebooting your PC, to avoid BB’s configuration files getting corrupted. There is a very small chance that this happens, only when BB is abruptly stopped while it is updating a config file at that exact moment. But the chance is not zero. So please keep this in mind.

Stopping Balance Bot

To stop BB, from within the Command Prompt or Terminal window where you started BB, type CTRL+C / Control+C once or a few times, until the prompt appears.

Updating Balance Bot

To install an update of the BB application, simply open the Command Prompt (Windows) or Terminal (macOS), go into the BB folder (e.g. c:\balance-bot), and type: node install

Choose option 2 from the menu, and the latest version will be installed. Once the process completes, restart BB by typing node bb again.

Reinstalling Balance Bot

In some cases, an update may not work because of a breaking change. To address this, the installer offers the option to re-install BB. To do so, type node install, and choose option 3 from the menu. This will result in a clean install of BB, but the settings and bot configuration data will be maintained.

Raspberry PI

Running BB on a Raspberry PI could be a great option. You don’t need to keep your PC running 24/7 and you don’t need to set up and pay for a server in the cloud. It does however require some technical skills to figure out how to get BB installed. Luckily, one of our community members was so kind to write a few great guides:

• Guide for installing BB on a Raspberry PI
• Guide for updating BB on a Raspberry PI