> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.bosonnetwork.io/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.bosonnetwork.io/readme.md).

# Welcome to Boson Network

**Boson** is a fully decentralized, peer-to-peer network for secure communication and data sharing — with no central registry, no usernames, and no certificate authorities. Every node and every user is identified by an Ed25519 public key, and everything else is built on top of a secure Kademlia distributed hash table (DHT).

Boson is **permissionless**: anyone can run a node, join the network, publish a service, or build an application on it.

## What you can build

* **Messaging apps** — end-to-end encrypted, multi-device, federated messaging.
* **Self-sovereign identity** — W3C DID identities anchored to the DHT.
* **Decentralized object storage** — content-addressed, deduplicated, federated binary storage.
* **Self-hosted services behind NAT** — expose a home server or device to the internet with no port forwarding or static IP.

## How Boson is structured

Boson is a **two-layer** network:

```
  Layer 2 — Application Services
  ┌──────────────┐  ┌──────────────┐  ┌──────────────┐  ┌──────────────┐
  │  WebGateway  │  │   Messaging  │  │  Ion Store   │  │ Active Proxy │
  │   (HTTPS)    │  │   (MQTTS)    │  │   (HTTPS)    │  │    (TCP)     │
  └──────────────┘  └──────────────┘  └──────────────┘  └──────────────┘

  Layer 1 — Boson DHT
  ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
  │   Kademlia DHT · Ed25519 identity · nodes, values & peers · UDP      │
  └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
```

* **Layer 1 — the DHT** carries node routing, mutable/immutable values, and peer (service) announcements. It is the discovery and signalling layer for everything above it.
* **Layer 2 — services** run on super nodes and announce themselves to the DHT, so clients can find them without hard-coded addresses.

New to all of this? Start with the [Architecture Overview](/core-concepts/architecture.md).

## Choose your path

<table data-view="cards"><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th data-hidden data-card-target data-type="content-ref"></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>Try it locally</strong></td><td>Run a node on your own machine and explore the network from the DHT shell, in a few minutes.</td><td><a href="/getting-started/install.md">Try Boson Locally</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Learn the concepts</strong></td><td>The two-layer design, node types, identity, services and federation, and how they fit together.</td><td><a href="/core-concepts/architecture.md">Architecture Overview</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Build an application</strong></td><td>Use the Java SDK, the service clients or plain HTTPS to add identity, messaging, storage and NAT traversal to your app.</td><td><a href="/build-applications/build-apps.md">Overview</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Run a node</strong></td><td>Plan, install, configure and operate a bootstrap node, a personal super node or a public super node.</td><td><a href="/deploy-a-node/planning.md">Planning a Deployment</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Build a service</strong></td><td>Write your own layer-2 service that announces itself in the DHT and serves the node's users.</td><td><a href="/build-services/build-services.md">Overview</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Contribute</strong></td><td>Set up a development environment, build from source and submit changes to Boson itself.</td><td><a href="/contribute/contribute.md">Overview</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

Not sure where to begin? [Choose Your Path](/introduction/choose-your-path.md) lays out a reading order for each goal.

## Project links

* **GitHub:** [github.com/bosonnetwork](https://github.com/bosonnetwork)
* **Open-source SDKs:** [Boson.Core](https://github.com/bosonnetwork/Boson.Core) and the client libraries
* **Public nodes:** [public-boson-nodes](https://github.com/bosonnetwork/public-boson-nodes)
* **Community:** [Telegram](https://t.me/awesameboson)


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