Getting Started

Crow can be set up in several ways depending on your use case:

Choose Your Path

Managed Hosting (Easiest)

Pre-configured Crow instance — no setup, no maintenance. Your own subdomain at username.crow.maestro.press with dashboard, blog, AI integrations, daily backups, and SSL included.

Managed Hosting Guide

Cloud Deploy (Quickest)

Deploy Crow to Render for access from any device — web, mobile, or desktop. Free tier available.

→ Cloud Deploy Guide

Raspberry Pi (Crow OS)

Turn a Raspberry Pi into a dedicated Crow appliance with one command. No SSH required after setup.

→ Raspberry Pi Guide

Free Hosting Options

Compare free hosting providers — Render, Oracle Cloud Always Free, and Raspberry Pi.

→ Free Hosting Guide

Desktop Only

Run Crow locally as stdio MCP servers connected directly to Claude Desktop. No cloud needed, but only works on that machine.

→ Desktop Setup Guide

Docker

Self-host the gateway with Docker Compose. Best for developers who want full control.

→ Docker Guide

What You'll Get

After setup, your AI assistant will have:

• Persistent memory — remembers across conversations
• Research pipeline — manages sources, generates APA citations
• 20+ integrations — Gmail, GitHub, Slack, Notion, Trello, and more
• Full-text search — find anything stored in memory or research
• Encrypted P2P sharing — share memories and research with other Crow users
• File storage — upload and manage files with S3-compatible storage
• Blog platform — publish posts with Markdown, RSS feeds, and themes
• Dashboard — visual web interface for managing your Crow instance

Requirements

• A free Render account (for cloud deploy)
• A free Turso database (only needed for Render cloud deploy)
• Node.js 18+ (for desktop/local setup)
• Raspberry Pi 4+ with 4 GB RAM (for Crow OS)
• An account on at least one AI platform (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.)