OpenSearch Dashboards provides a fully integrated solution for visually exploring, discovering, and querying your observability data. You can install OpenSearch Dashboards with any of the following options:
OpenSearch Dashboards requires the Node.js runtime binary to run. One is included in the distribution packages available from the [OpenSearch downloads page](https://opensearch.org/downloads.html){:target='\_blank'}.
OpenSearch Dashboards 2.8.0 and newer can use Node.js versions 14, 16, and 18. The distribution packages for OpenSearch Dashboards 2.10.0 and newer include Node.js 18 and 14 (for backward compatibility).
To use a Node.js runtime binary other than the ones included in the distribution packages, follow these steps:
1. Download and install [Node.js](https://nodejs.org/en/download){:target='\_blank'}; the compatible versions are `>=14.20.1 <19`.
2. Set the installation path to the `NODE_HOME` or `NODE_OSD_HOME` environment variables.
- On UNIX, if Node.js is installed to `/usr/local/nodejs` and the runtime binary is `/usr/local/nodejs/bin/node`:
```bash
export NODE_HOME=/usr/local/nodejs
```
- If Node.js is installed using NVM and the runtime binary is `/Users/user/.nvm/versions/node/v18.19.0/bin/node`:
- On Windows, if Node.js is installed to `C:\Program Files\nodejs` and the runtime binary is `C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe`:
```powershell
set "NODE_HOME=C:\Program Files\nodejs"
# or using PowerShell:
$Env:NODE_HOME = 'C:\Program Files\nodejs'
```
Consult your operating system's documentation to make a persistent change to the environment variables.
The OpenSearch Dashboards start script,`bin/opensearch-dashboards`, searches for the Node.js runtime binary using `NODE_OSD_HOME`,
and then `NODE_HOME`, before using the binaries included with the distribution packages. If a usable Node.js runtime binary is not found, the start script will attempt to find one in the system-wide `PATH` before failing.
To learn how to configure TLS for OpenSearch Dashboards, see [Configure TLS]({{site.url}}{{site.baseurl}}/install-and-configure/install-dashboards/tls/).