The easiest way to install pnpm is using npm:

npm install -g pnpm

Other solutions are:

Using a standalone script:

curl -L https://pnpm.js.org/pnpm.js | node - add --global pnpm

On Windows (PowerShell):

(Invoke-WebRequest 'https://pnpm.js.org/pnpm.js' -UseBasicParsing).Content | node - add --global pnpm

Via npx:

npx pnpm add -g pnpm

Once you first installed pnpm, you can upgrade it using pnpm:

pnpm add -g pnpm

Do you wanna use pnpm on CI servers? See: Continuous Integration.

Compatibility

Here is a list of past pnpm versions with respective Node.js version support.

pnpm 1 pnpm 2 pnpm 3 pnpm 4 pnpm 5
Node.js 4 yes no no no no
Node.js 6 yes yes no no no
Node.js 8 yes yes yes no no
Node.js 10 yes yes yes yes yes
Node.js 12 no no yes yes yes
Node.js 14 no no yes yes yes