Installation

Getting started with BoxLang is easy! Choose your path wisely!

PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE STILL IN OPEN BETA. ANYTHING CAN CHANGE

Requirements

You should be able to grab the Java 21 JDK for your OS and CPU arch here: Download Java 21 JDK 4

• JDK 21+

BoxLang is currently compiling Java source on the fly for debugging purposes, so it requires a JDK, not a JRE, to run! Eventually, we’ll be generating bytecode directly, but for now, we have a dependency on the JDK’s Java Compiler classes.

Mac

We recommend using homebrew to get started on a Mac with the BoxLang requirements. If not, you must download the requirements separately from the link above.

brew install curl zip unzip openjdk

*Unix

Leverage your system‘s package manager to install the needed requirements.

APT

# Update OS first
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get full-upgrade

# Install requirements
sudo apt-get install curl zip unzip openjdk-21

Yum

# Update OS first
sudo yum update
sudo yum upgrade

# Install requirements
sudo yum install curl zip unzip java-21-openjdk

Mac/*Unix Quick Installer

To get started quickly with BoxLang, use our BoxLang Quick Installer:

Bash / ZSH

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://downloads.ortussolutions.com/ortussolutions/boxlang/install-boxlang.sh)"

SH

/bin/sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://downloads.ortussolutions.com/ortussolutions/boxlang/install-boxlang.sh)"

If your system requires admin privileges (Like Chromebooks), make sure you use sudo

The quick installer requires the following:

• JDK21+

• curl, unzip installed

• Permission to copy files to /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/lib

The quick installer will install the OS binary and the MiniServer in the above directories. It will also install the following scripts for you.

• boxlang - Our BoxLang binary runner, learn more

• boxlang-miniserver - Our BoxLang MiniServer binary runner, learn more

• install-boxlang - The quick installer so you can reuse it to upgrade your installations

• install-bx-module - A module installer. Just pass in the slug of the module and watch it install

Upgrading Your Install

The install-boxlang script will allow you to easily upgrade your OS install as well. If you call it with no arguments, then it will install the latest release and override the local install. You can also pass a specific version to install as the second argument.

# Install / Upgrade to the latest version
install-boxlang

# Upgrade or Downgrade to a specific version
install-boxlang 1.0.0

REPL

Just run boxlang and you are ready to rock in our REPL:

Installing Modules

You can use the install-bx-module binary to install modules into your boxlang home. Just pass in the name of the slug you want. All of our core modules are available here and in FORGEBOX. Please note that you can only install our core modules from this binary, not any module from FORGEBOX, for that, use CommandBox.

install-bx-module bx-compat
install-bx-module bx-esapi

Binaries

The quick installer is the best and easiest way to get installed on Mac or *Nix. However, below, you can find a collection of all our installers and binaries for running BoxLang and each Runtime.

Operating System Binaries

Here, you can find the installers and binaries for all Operating Systems:

• Windows Installer: https://downloads.ortussolutions.com/ortussolutions/boxlang/boxlang-snapshot-installer.exe

• Zip (All OSs): https://downloads.ortussolutions.com/ortussolutions/boxlang/1.0.0/boxlang-1.0.0.zip

• Jar: https://downloads.ortussolutions.com/ortussolutions/boxlang/1.0.0/boxlang-1.0.0-all.jar

• Quick Installer (Mac/*nix) https://downloads.ortussolutions.com/ortussolutions/boxlang/install-boxlang.sh

MiniServer Binaries

The BoxLang MiniServer includes the BoxLang OS runtime with the addition of our super fast and lightweight web server.

• All OSs: https://downloads.ortussolutions.com/ortussolutions/boxlang-runtimes/boxlang-miniserver/1.0.0/boxlang-miniserver-1.0.0.zip

AWS Lambda Binaries

BoxLang can also run on AWS Lambdas. It even powers our entry playground at https://try.boxlang.io.

• Runtime: https://downloads.ortussolutions.com/ortussolutions/boxlang-runtimes/boxlang-aws-lambda/1.0.0/boxlang-aws-lambda-1.0.0.zip

• Template https://github.com/ortus-boxlang/bx-aws-lambda-template

CommandBox BoxLang Server

BoxLang can also be deployed using CommandBox. This is our preferred way to deploy web applications using BoxLang. BoxLang +/++ Subscribers even get access to CommandBox Pro.

box install commandbox-boxlang
box server start cfengine=boxlang javaVersion=openjdk21_jdk

Learn more in our CommandBox guide.

Servlet EE Binaries

This is the servlet edition of BoxLang that you can deploy on any servlet container (Jetty, Tomcat, JBoss, etc)

• WAR: https://downloads.ortussolutions.com/ortussolutions/boxlang-runtimes/boxlang-servlet/1.0.0/boxlang-servlet-1.0.0.war

• JAR: https://downloads.ortussolutions.com/ortussolutions/boxlang-runtimes/boxlang-servlet/1.0.0/boxlang-servlet-1.0.0-all.jar

Docker

We have a full Docker guide you can follow here.

BoxLang IDE

BoxLang IDE

The BoxLang IDE is a collection of modules for VSCode. You can find it here:

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ortus-solutions.vscode-boxlangmarketplace.visualstudio.com

Install Now

Core Modules

The BoxLang core is lightweight and fast. Everything that extends the core comes in the form of modules. We have a collection of core modules that the BoxLang team maintains and curates. We also have several enterprise modules for our BoxLang +,++ subscribers and the community also can create and share modules in our cloud package manager FORGEBOX.

We recommend you use CommandBox, Our CLI and Package Manager, to interact, install, and work with any package in BoxLang.

pageModules

BoxLang+, ++ Modules

Our BoxLang+, and ++ subscribers not only get customized support but also new features, and modules. You can find out more about our subscriptions here: https://boxlang.io/plans. Here is the collection of modules that you will get with your subscription.

Module	Description	Status
bx-redis	Native Redis integration for caching, session distribution, and publish-subcribe events.	In Development
bx-mongo	Native MongoDB integration for caching, session distribution and advanced MongoDB operations.	In Development
bx-couchbase	Native Couchbase integration for caching, NoSQL, session distribution and advanced Couchbase usage.	In Development
bx-pdftools	Our collection of enhanced PDF tooling. Includes the ability to extract PDF forms, fill out PDF forms, squash, merge and more.	In Development

Please note that these modules are still under development; we will publish their status as we complete them.