Getting Started with Moondream

This guide will help you set up Moondream in minutes using our free Cloud tier or running locally. For more advanced options, see our advanced documentation.

Setup

You need to choose one of these two options: cloud or local. Both are free options.

Option A: Cloud

It's quicker since there's no download:

  1. Create an API key at the Moondream Cloud Console (free tier available, no credit card required)
  2. Copy and save your API key (you'll need it for the code examples below)

Option B: Local

You have two main options for running Moondream locally:

  1. Mac/Linux: Use Moondream Station, the easiest way to run Moondream locally
  2. Advanced: Use Hugging Face transformers directly - Instructions

We don't have a Windows version yet. If you're on Windows, we recommend using the cloud option.

Code

Once you have either a Moondream Cloud API key or Moondream running locally, check out our Moondream Examples repo for sample code to get you started. The examples work with our Python and Node clients, as well as Bash using cURL.

Each Moondream capability has its own method or function. In this example we've used caption, but Moondream also supports query, point, and detect. Learn more about these capabilities in our capabilities documentation.


Next Steps