Hosting Options

Both options are free. Run Beacon locally with full control of your data, or use Beacon Managed for hosted storage, search, analytics, and unlimited retention.

Capability	Local	Beacon Managed
Cross-harness agent telemetry	✓	✓
Local, CI & cloud collection	✓	✓
Unified agent session history	✓	✓
Store data locally	✓	✓
Forward to your own data stack	✓	✓
Hosted ingest & storage	—	✓
Search & analytics	—	✓
Identity mapping	—	✓
Agent Session Retention	You manage	Unlimited
SSO & RBAC	—	✓

Local

Use the open-source local path when you want endpoint telemetry without a hosted Beacon backend. Agent Beacon runs on the endpoint, writes normalized events to local JSONL, and can forward events into customer-managed security workflows.

macOS
Windows
Linux

Install Beacon with Homebrew:

brew trust asymptote-labs/tap
brew tap asymptote-labs/tap
brew install beacon
beacon version

Then configure local endpoint telemetry:

beacon endpoint install
beacon endpoint status

See the macOS install guide for package and fleet deployment options.

Download BeaconEndpointAgent-<version>-x64.msi from the latest release, then run PowerShell as an administrator:

msiexec /i BeaconEndpointAgent-<version>-x64.msi
& "$env:ProgramFiles\Beacon\bin\beacon.exe" endpoint status --system

The MSI installs and starts the endpoint service. See the Windows install guide for silent installation and checksum verification.

Download the .deb or .rpm for your architecture from the latest release:

sudo apt install ./beacon_<version>_linux_amd64.deb
beacon endpoint status --system

sudo dnf install ./beacon_<version>_linux_amd64.rpm
beacon endpoint status --system

Replace amd64 with arm64 on ARM systems. See the Linux install guide for rootless and tarball installation.

Open the local dashboard to inspect runtime inventory, timelines, filters, and event details:

Open the local dashboard

beacon endpoint dashboard --open

The local path preserves runtime.jsonl on the endpoint and supports optional forwarding to supported SIEM, observability, object-storage, local JSONL, and customer-managed destinations. See Local for setup details and Security & IT Rollout Guide for managed endpoint deployment.

Beacon Managed

Use Managed when you want hosted visibility, governance, and enterprise rollout support for agent activity.

Create a Beacon account.
Connect each endpoint to your account:

beacon endpoint connect --dashboard-url https://beacon.sh

Beacon Managed gives you the open-source Agent Beacon experience without having to run the backend yourself. For cloud-hosted agent applications, install the Observe SDK and initialize hosted export with a Beacon API key:

Set the hosted Observe API key

export ASYMPTOTE_API_KEY=...

Initialize hosted Observe

import { Observe } from "@asymptote/sdk";

Observe.initialize({
  apiKey: process.env.ASYMPTOTE_API_KEY,
});

See Beacon Managed for managed platform capabilities and SDK Quickstart for cloud instrumentation details.

Beacon Managed

Review managed ingest, governance, investigations, access control, and rollout support.

Local

Install Beacon, configure endpoint telemetry, and keep the CLI up to date.

Quickstart

Choose the right path for a local or managed rollout.

Beacon Observe SDK

Instrument cloud-hosted agent applications with hosted or customer-managed export.

Beacon Overview

See how local Beacon fits with Beacon Managed.

Log Forwarding

Forward local Beacon events into security and observability platforms.

Get Started

Deploy Beacon

How Beacon Works

Manage Beacon

Agent Harness Integrations

Support

Contributing

Hosting Options

Local

Beacon Managed

Beacon Managed

Local

Quickstart

Beacon Observe SDK

Beacon Overview

Log Forwarding

​Local

​Beacon Managed

​Related

Beacon Managed

Local

Quickstart

Beacon Observe SDK

Beacon Overview

Log Forwarding

Local

Beacon Managed

Related