diff --git a/INSTALL.md b/INSTALL.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..118d18635
--- /dev/null
+++ b/INSTALL.md
@@ -0,0 +1,80 @@
+# Install and run 4CAT
+
+## Overview
+4CAT has two components, the backend and the web tool. These share some bits
+of code and a configuration file but apart from that they run independently.
+Communication between the two happens via a PostgreSQL database.
+
+## Installation
+After cloning the repository, copy `config.py-example` to `config.py` and edit
+the file to match your machine's configuration. The various options are
+explained in the file itself.
+
+Note that you need to create a database and database user yourself: this is
+not handled by 4CAT. Upon first running the backend, it will create new tables
+and indices in the database specified in `config.py`, so make sure the
+configured database user has the rights to do so.
+
+Next, install the dependencies. While in the 4CAT root folder, run pip:
+
+```
+pip3 install -r requirements.txt
+```
+
+You should now be set up to run 4CAT.
+
+## Running 4CAT
+### Running the backend
+The backend can be run by navigating to the `backend` folder and using the
+`backend.py` script in there to control the 4CAT backend daemon:
+
+```
+python3 backend.py start
+```
+
+Other valid arguments are `stop`, `restart` and `status`. Note that 4CAT was
+made to run on a UNIX-like system and the above will not work on Windows. If
+you want to use Windows (this is not recommended except for testing or
+development, and disabled on UNIX-like systems) you can run `bootstrap.py`, 
+which will run the backend directly in the terminal.
+
+### Running the web tool
+Next, start the web tool. Navigate to the `webtool` folder and run the 4CAT
+Flask app:
+
+```
+FLASK_APP=fourcat flask run
+```
+
+With the default configuration, you can now navigate to 
+`http://localhost:5000` where you'll find the web tool that allows you to query
+the database and create datasets.
+
+##Acquiring data
+4CAT is not very useful with an empty database. To fill it with 4chan data,
+you can either import data from elsewhere or scrape 4chan yourself (or do 
+both).
+
+###Import 4chan data dumps from elsewhere
+Included in the `backend` folder is `import_dump.py`. You can use this script
+to import dumps from 4plebs (e.g. 
+[these](https://archive.org/details/4plebs-org-data-dump-2018-01)). Run the
+script without arguments for more information on its syntax. Note that for
+larger boards, imports can take a long time to finish (multiple days). This is
+due to the sheer size of the data sets, and because 4CAT needs full text 
+indices to search through the data.
+
+###Scrape 4chan yourself
+The 4CAT backend comes with a 4chan API scraper that can capture new posts
+on 4chan as they are posted. You can configure which boards are to be scraped
+in `config.py`. Note that the 4chan API has a rate limit and scraping too many
+boards will probably make you hit that limit quite quickly. It is recommended
+that you keep an eye on the backend log files when you first start scraping to
+make sure you're getting all the data you want.
+
+## Separating the backend and web tool
+While by default the web tool and backend run on the same server, you could set
+things up so that they run on separate servers instead. Simply only start the 
+backend on one server, and the frontend on the other. If you configure the
+front end to connect to the database on another server (or vice versa), the backend
+and front end will be able to communicate.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 0829ad699..7d1e0773b 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,21 +1,3 @@
-requests==2.19.1
-psycopg2_binary==2.7.5
-html2text==2018.1.9
-numpy==1.15.2
-scipy==1.1.0
-stop_words==2018.7.23
-setuptools==40.0.0
-psutil==5.4.7
-Flask==1.0.2
-pandas==0.23.4
-gensim==3.6.0
-matplotlib==3.0.0
-mpld3==0.3
-APScheduler==3.5.3
-Flask_Limiter==1.0.1
-nltk==3.3
-Pillow==5.3.0
-adjustText==0.7.3
-beautifulsoup4==4.6.3
-psycopg2==2.7.5
-scikit_learn==0.20.0
+--index-url https://pypi.python.org/simple/
+
+-e .
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..2ca5a1470
--- /dev/null
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+from setuptools import setup
+
+with open("README.md", 'r') as readmefile:
+	readme = readmefile.read()
+
+setup(
+	name='fourcat',
+	version=1,
+
+	description='4CAT: Capture and Analysis Tool is a comprehensive tool for analysing discourse on 4chan',
+	long_description=readme,
+	author="Open Intelligence Lab",
+	author_email="4cat@oilab.eu",
+	url="https://4cat.oilab.nl",
+
+	packages=['backend', 'webtool'],
+	install_requires=[
+		"requests==2.19.1",
+		"psycopg2_binary==2.7.5",
+		"html2text==2018.1.9",
+		"numpy==1.15.2",
+		"scipy==1.1.0",
+		"stop_words==2018.7.23",
+		"setuptools==40.0.0",
+		"psutil==5.4.7",
+		"Flask==1.0.2",
+		"pandas==0.23.4",
+		"gensim==3.6.0",
+		"matplotlib==3.0.0",
+		"mpld3==0.3",
+		"APScheduler==3.5.3",
+		"Flask_Limiter==1.0.1",
+		"nltk==3.3",
+		"Pillow==5.3.0",
+		"adjustText==0.7.3",
+		"beautifulsoup4==4.6.3",
+		"psycopg2==2.7.5",
+		"scikit_learn==0.20.0"
+	]
+)