# Foundations

The foundation to build on: what FlowFuse is, its core pieces, and how code is shared across teams.

**FlowFuse is an application platform for building, deploying and managing industrial applications on Node-RED** — across IT, OT and IIoT, from the edge to the cloud, governed from one place.

## The big picture

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</arch-diagram>

## The core pieces

- **Single platform** — Manage, secure, and govern everything from one place.
- **Instances** — Node-RED runtimes. A **Hosted Instance** runs on FlowFuse-managed infrastructure (cloud or your own server); a **Remote Instance** runs on your own edge hardware via the Device Agent. Same runtime either way — it connects to whatever the job needs (hardware, data, cloud) and can serve its own Dashboard. [What an instance connects to →](/docs/node-red-guide/foundations/)
- **Team Broker** — A shared message bus that ties data together across sites.
- **Database** — One shared operational data store.
- **Dashboards** — Operator-facing UIs for the people who run it.
- **Edge & device management** — Deploy and manage across many devices, lines, and plants.

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**Remote Instance** — A Remote Instance lives in both worlds: edge execution down in OT, or an on-prem worker under an IT/cloud platform.

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**In the FlowFuse docs** — that's the mental model in plain language. For the full glossary — every FlowFuse piece and term (Applications, Instances, Snapshots, Pipelines, Team Broker, Tables, Devices and more) — see the [FlowFuse Concepts documentation](/docs/user/concepts/).

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## How code gets shared

Two ways code moves in FlowFuse: promote a whole app through environments, or compose an app from shared parts.

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**App delivery methods →** — whole app or reusable pieces: how a build reaches every place that should run it.

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