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Version: 8.10 (unreleased)

Quickstart

Welcome to the Quickstart section for Camunda 8 Self-Managed. This guide is designed to help you get up and running quickly with Camunda 8 in a local environment—whether you're a developer building process solutions or an administrator responsible for deploying and running Camunda clusters.

You’ll find two tailored quickstart paths:

  • A developer quickstart using lightweight tools like Camunda 8 Run and Docker Compose.
  • An administrator quickstart using Kind (Kubernetes in Docker) to simulate real-world infrastructure.
note

These quickstarts are intended for local testing and learning purposes only. They are not designed for production deployments.

Quickstart for developers​

If you're a developer looking to evaluate or build process solutions with Camunda 8, this path is for you. It focuses on getting a minimal setup running quickly using:

  • Camunda 8 Run: A lightweight distribution of the Camunda engine.
  • Docker Compose: For spinning up required services like ZeebeZeebeZeebe is a highly scalable, cloud-native workflow engine used to automate business processes. It acts as the core component of Camunda 8., Operate, and Tasklist.

Get started with the developer quickstart

Quickstart for administrators​

If you're an administrator exploring how Camunda 8 runs in a Kubernetes-like environment, this guide walks you through:

  • Using Kind to simulate a Kubernetes cluster locally.
  • Deploying the full Camunda 8 stack using Helm charts.

Get started with the administrator quickstart

What you’ll learn​

In each quickstart, you will:

  • Spin up a local environment with the core Camunda 8 components.
  • Deploy a sample process definition.
  • Interact with the Orchestration ClusterOrchestration ClusterThe Orchestration Cluster is the core component of Camunda 8, powering the automation and orchestration of processes. An Orchestration Cluster includes: web applications (Operate and Tasklist).
  • Understand the responsibilities associated with your chosen role (developer or administrator).

Prerequisites​

Each quickstart guide lists the required tools and setup steps. In general, you’ll need:

  • Docker and Docker Compose (for developers).
  • Kind, kubectl, and Helm (for administrators).
  • A basic understanding of BPMN and distributed systems is helpful but not required.

Next steps​

After completing a quickstart, you can:

  • Dive deeper into platform components like Zeebe, Operate, and Identity.
  • Learn about production deployment options.
  • Explore real-world examples and best practices.