Before installing

Starship Server brings all information collected on various devices together. It is recommended that the machine, on which the server is running, runs all the time, but it is not a requirement. When the server is running, Starship Clients will send the data.

Similarly Starship Clients are fully functional when you are working off-line. When the connection is available, Starship clients will send the data.

Hardware requirements and the approximate size of the database

Starship uses two databases, Core and Reports. Core is the more important one, it is the only one you need to backup. Reports can be recreated from Core, so there is no need to have a backup plan for Reports.

Starship Server and database engine can run on two different machines, although they can run on the same machine. In the table below we assume they are running on different machines.

Number of users	Suggested hardware	Database size
100	Machine with Starship Server: 2 core, 4GB memory Machine with database Server: 2 core, 8GB memory	StarshipCore database: 1.5 GB per year StarshipReports database: 25 GB per year
200	Machine with Starship Server: 2 core, 8GB memory Machine with database Server: 2 core, 16GB memory	StarshipCore database: 3 GB per year StarshipReports database: 50 GB per year
1000	Machine with Starship Server: 4 core, 16GB memory Machine with database Server: 4 core, 32GB memory	StarshipCore database: 15 GB per year StarshipReports database: 250 GB per year
25,000	• Machine with Starship Server: 2 cores, 16GB memory
• Machine with Database Server: 2 cores, 32GB memory	• StarshipCore database: 75 GB per year
• StarshipReports database: 1,250 GB per year
100,000	◦ Machine with Starship Server: 4 cores, 32GB memory

◦ Machine with Database Server: 4 cores, 64GB memory | • StarshipCore database: **300 GB per year**

• StarshipReports database: 5,000 GB per year | | 500,000 | ◦ Machine with Starship Server: 8 cores, 64GB memory ◦ Machine with Database Server: 8 cores, 128GB memory | ◦ StarshipCore database: 1,500 GB per year ◦ StarshipReports database: 25,000 GB per year |

Before you get started with installing Starship Server, decide on two things:

which database to use
which authentication type to use

Which database to choose?

Starship Server needs a database to run. You can use one of three options:

SQLite (default) - You don't need to install anything, it will work out of the box. We recommend this only for up to 3 users or for testing purposes.
PostgreSQL - This is a great free to use open source database. You need to install it before you run Starship Server setup.
Microsoft SQL Server - You need to install it before you run Starship Server setup (you can use free MS SQL Express version, but beware of the size constraints).
ClickHouse - This is a fast open-source column-oriented database management system that excels in handling analytical queries efficiently. It is particularly useful if you need high-speed data processing and real-time analytics. Installation is required before running the Starship Server setup.

Database comparison table

	SQLite	PostgreSQL	Microsoft SQL Server	ClickHouse
Is it free?	Yes	Yes	MS SQL Express is a free version, supporting databases of up to 10GB in size	Yes
Backup plan	You can stop the server and copy database file	Yes	Yes	Automated backups available
Need to install before installing Starship Server	No	Yes	Yes	No
Recommended number of users	Up to 10, but may work OK with more	No limit	No limit	No limit
Use SQL to transfer data from Starship Server to some other database	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Can be hosted on a different machine	No	Yes	Yes	Yes

Hardware requirements and the approximate size of the database

Which database to choose?

Which user type to choose?