# Introduction

Cytomine is an open-source RESTful web platform composed of multiple services encapsulated in Docker containers.

Leveraging Docker power, you can install the whole Cytomine platform on a personal laptop (without collaborative tools), on a virtual machine or a dedicated server in your lab or at large scale, by hosting containers on different machines to increase performance and stability (horizontal scaling).

To interact with Cytomine you can use a regular browser and access the graphical user interface (GUI). As a RESTful application, it is possible to interact using external clients in different languages (Python, Javascript, Java).

Cytomine platform comes now in two major versions:

# Cytomine Community Edition 2023.1

The current stable version of Cytomine. Install this version

# Cytomine Community Edition Legacy

The legacy version of Cytomine (v3), still proposed to installation, but not developped anymore, unless for bugfixing. Install this version