# Instances

Let's get to the good stuff. You can spin up a Gel instance with a single command.

```bash
$ gel instance create my_instance
```

This creates a new instance named `my_instance` that runs the latest stable version of Gel. (Gel itself will be automatically installed if it isn't already.) Alternatively you can specify a specific version with `--version`.

```bash
$ gel instance create my_instance --version 6.1
$ gel instance create my_instance --version nightly
```

We can execute a query against our new instance with `gel query`. Specify which instance to connect to by passing an instance name into the `-I` flag.

```bash
$ gel query "select 3.14" -I my_instance
3.14
```

## Managing instances

Instances can be stopped, started, restarted, and destroyed.

```bash
$ gel instance stop -I my_instance
$ gel instance start -I my_instance
$ gel instance restart -I my_instance
$ gel instance destroy -I my_instance
```

## Listing instances

To list all instances on your machine:

```bash
$ gel instance list
┌────────┬──────────────────┬──────────┬────────────────┬──────────┐
│ Kind   │ Name             │ Port     │ Version        │ Status   │
├────────┼──────────────────┼──────────┼────────────────┼──────────┤
│ local  │ my_instance      │ 10700    │ x.x+cc4f3b5    │ active   │
│ local  │ my_instance_2    │ 10701    │ x.x+cc4f3b5    │ active   │
│ local  │ my_instance_3    │ 10702    │ x.x+cc4f3b5    │ active   │
└────────┴──────────────────┴──────────┴────────────────┴──────────┘
```

## Further reference

For complete documentation on managing instances with the CLI (upgrading, viewing logs, etc.), refer to the [gel instance](https://docs.geldata.com/reference/using/cli/gel_instance.md#ref-cli-gel-instance) reference or view the help text in your shell:

```bash
$ gel instance --help
```