If you are on a Debian flavor of Linux (Ubuntu, Mint, etc.), you can install CouchDB with:

$ sudo apt-get install couchdb

On a Mac you can do:

$ brew install couchdb

On Windows, you should install from the CouchDB web site.

A CouchDB alternative: PouchDB Server

If you have trouble installing CouchDB, you can also install PouchDB Server, which is a drop-in replacement for CouchDB that uses PouchDB under the hood:

$ npm install -g pouchdb-server

$ pouchdb-server --port 5984

PouchDB Server is currently experimental, and we do not recommend it for production environments.

CORS is a web technology that allows web sites to use resources from another domain. You will want to enable this in your CouchDB before continuing, because otherwise PouchDB will not work unless it's served from exactly the same domain as CouchDB.

Enabling CORS is easy. Just install this handy script:

$ npm install -g add-cors-to-couchdb

And run it:

$ add-cors-to-couchdb

If you installed PouchDB Server, CORS is enabled by default, and this step is not necessary.

<script src="bower_components/pouchdb/dist/pouchdb.min.js"></script>