# What is Alternate Clouds? (/guides)



Alternate Clouds runs your software on **decentralized infrastructure**. Instead
of renting servers from one company, your workloads run on a network of
independent providers, matched to what each service needs (general compute,
confidential computing, GPUs), through one account, one bill, and one set of
tools.

You do not need to know anything about crypto or blockchains to use it. Sign in
with an email address, pay by card, and deploy.

## What you can run [#what-you-can-run]

* **Containers.** Any Docker image, with a public URL, environment variables,
  logs, and shell access.
* **Apps and AI agents from templates.** One-click templates for agents,
  databases, inference servers, and more.
* **GPU workloads.** GPUs billed by the hour for inference and training.
* **Confidential services.** Add `--confidential` to run inside a trusted
  execution environment (TEE) with remote attestation, so nobody, including the
  provider, can read your data.

## Three ways to use it [#three-ways-to-use-it]

|                                                                                 | Best for                                                                                                                       |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Web app** at [clouds.alternatefutures.ai](https://clouds.alternatefutures.ai) | Deploying from templates, watching services, managing billing and team members. See the [Web app overview](/guides/dashboard). |
| **CLI** (`acc`)                                                                 | Day-to-day work from a terminal, scripts, and CI. See [Install the CLI](/cli/installation).                                    |
| **SDK**                                                                         | Building the platform into your own product. See the [SDK overview](/sdk).                                                     |

AI agents can drive all three. See [Docs for AI agents](/ai-agents).

## How billing works [#how-billing-works]

Every account starts with a 14-day free trial, no card required. After that you
pay a monthly or yearly subscription plus prepaid credits that are spent as your
services run. Set a budget to cap spend. The model is explained in
[How billing works](/guides/how-billing-works); the tasks are in
[Manage billing and credits](/guides/billing).

## Key terms [#key-terms]

* **Project.** A workspace for related services and the people who manage them.
* **Service.** One deployed thing: a container, a template, a GPU job.
* **Deployment.** A single release of a service. Redeploying creates a new one.
* **Region.** Where a service runs: `us-east`, `us-west`, `eu`, `asia`, or Any.

How these fit together is in
[Accounts, organizations, and projects](/guides/account-model); more terms are
in the [glossary](/guides/glossary).

## Next steps [#next-steps]

<Cards>
  <Card title="Quick start" href="/guides/quickstart">
    Deploy your first service in about five minutes.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Sign in and accounts" href="/guides/authentication">
    Email or wallet sign-in, and tokens for the CLI and SDK.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Manage projects" href="/guides/projects">
    Organize services and invite your team.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Command reference" href="/cli/commands">
    Every acc command and flag.
  </Card>
</Cards>