Desktop App

A native macOS and Windows app that wraps the Orbiter admin server — no terminal, no npm, no Node.js required. Double-click to launch, manage content, and update automatically.

Install

macOS

Download Orbiter-universal.dmg from GitHub Releases. The universal binary runs natively on both Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3) and Intel Macs.

Open the .dmg
Drag Orbiter.app to the Applications folder
Double-click to launch

Gatekeeper warning — Orbiter is not signed with an Apple Developer ID. macOS may show "App is damaged" or ask for confirmation on first launch. Workarounds:

Right-click → Open in Finder, then click "Open anyway"
System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open anyway
If you see "damaged": remove the quarantine flag in Terminal:
xattr -cr /Applications/Orbiter.app

Windows

Download the .exe installer from GitHub Releases, run it, and launch Orbiter from the Start menu. The NSIS installer wizard lets you choose the install directory.

First launch — choose a pod

On first launch, Orbiter asks what to open:

Open existing pod — browse to an existing .pod file
Create new pod — choose a location, then pick a template

Template	Collections	Demo content
Blank	—	—
Blog	Posts, Categories	2 posts (1 published, 1 draft)
Portfolio	Projects, Categories	2 projects + 2 categories
Business	Pages, Services, Team	2 pages, 2 services, 1 team member
Events	Events, Categories	2 events + 2 categories

Every template creates an admin / admin user. Change the password in Account settings after logging in.

Switching pods

You can have multiple .pod files and switch between them at any time:

File → POD wechseln… ⌘O — open any existing .pod file; the app restarts with the new pod
File → Neuen POD erstellen… — file picker + template chooser

Both options are also available in the menu-bar tray (macOS) and system tray (Windows) — the app stays alive when you close the window.

Backup

File → POD sichern… ⌘⇧S — saves a timestamped copy of the active POD. The default filename is name-backup-YYYY-MM-DD.pod next to the original. After saving, a confirmation dialog offers to reveal the backup in Finder or Explorer.

Since a .pod file is a standard SQLite database, you can also back it up with any file backup tool — Time Machine, rsync, Dropbox, etc.

Auto-update

When a new version is published to GitHub Releases, the desktop app downloads it silently in the background. When the download is complete, a dialog appears:

Update downloaded — restart to apply?

Click Restart now to apply the update, or dismiss to update on the next launch.

To check for updates manually: Hilfe → Nach Updates suchen…

How it works

The desktop app is built with Electron 42. The Orbiter admin server runs inside a utilityProcess.fork() — a sandboxed Node.js process bundled inside the ASAR archive. No system Node.js is required.

The POD is the same standard SQLite database used by the npm package — fully interchangeable. You can open a pod created by the desktop app with @a83/orbiter-admin, and vice versa.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/aeon022/orbiter.git
cd orbiter && npm install

# Run in development (no packaging)
cd apps/desktop && npm run dev

# Build macOS universal DMG
cd apps/desktop && npx electron-builder --mac

# Build Windows NSIS installer
cd apps/desktop && npx electron-builder --win

Packaged releases are built automatically via GitHub Actions on every desktop-v* tag.