diff --git a/install.sh b/install.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..3b75930
--- /dev/null
+++ b/install.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# a simple install script for ctop
+
+KERNEL=$(uname -s)
+
+# extract github download url matching pattern
+function extract_url() {
+  match=$1; shift
+  echo "$@" | while read line; do
+    case $line in
+      *browser_download_url*${match}*)
+        url=$(echo $line | sed -e 's/^.*"browser_download_url":[ ]*"//' -e 's/".*//;s/\ //g')
+        echo $url
+        break
+      ;;
+    esac
+  done
+}
+
+case $KERNEL in
+  Linux) MATCH_BUILD="linux-amd64" ;;
+  Darwin) MATCH_BUILD="darwin-amd64" ;;
+  *)
+    echo "platform not supported by this install script"
+    exit 1
+    ;;
+esac
+
+echo "fetching latest release info"
+resp=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/bcicen/ctop/releases/latest)
+
+#TODO add checksum validation
+#echo "fetching release checksums"
+#checksum_url=$(extract_url sha256sums.txt "$resp")
+#wget -q $checksum_url
+
+echo "fetching latest ctop"
+url=$(extract_url $MATCH_BUILD "$resp")
+wget -q --show-progress $url -O ctop
+
+echo "installing to /usr/local/bin"
+chmod +x ctop
+sudo mv -v ctop /usr/local/bin/ctop
+
+echo "done"