---
title: Architecture
description: How Futrou Cloud, Futrou Nasua, and Futrou CLI fit together.
---

Futrou is three separate pieces that work together, each usable on its own:

- **[Futrou Cloud](/docs/cloud/)** — the managed control plane: the dashboard, billing, workspaces, and team access you use day to day.
- **[Futrou Nasua](/docs/nasua/)** — the orchestrator that actually runs your infrastructure: starting containers, routing traffic, answering DNS.
- **[Futrou CLI](/docs/cli/)** — the terminal tool for managing either one, or both, with the same commands.

## How they relate

Futrou Cloud doesn't run your containers itself — it's configuration and coordination. When you create a serverlet in the dashboard, Futrou Cloud stores that configuration and hands it off to a Futrou Nasua instance to actually run. Every region — public or private — is a Futrou Nasua instance; Futrou Cloud is what lets you manage many of them, across many workspaces, from one place.

Futrou Nasua doesn't need Futrou Cloud to function. It's a complete, independent orchestrator on its own — install it on a server, and it'll run containers, proxy traffic, and serve DNS with nothing else involved. Point it at Futrou Cloud and it becomes a region you can manage from the dashboard alongside Futrou's own public regions; run it standalone and you manage it directly, server by server.

The Futrou CLI talks to whichever one you point it at. The same commands manage a serverlet whether it's running through Futrou Cloud or directly against a standalone Futrou Nasua server, because both expose the same REST API and schema — Futrou Cloud simply adds a layer on top: a web dashboard, workspaces and projects, member roles and per-project access, SSO and OAuth2 login, and billing. [Futrou MCP](/docs/mcp/) is part of that Futrou Cloud layer, giving AI coding agents the same workspace-scoped access a person gets through the dashboard.

## Choosing where to run

- Use **Futrou Cloud with public regions** if you just want to deploy — no infrastructure of your own to manage.
- Add **your own servers as a private region** if you want Futrou Cloud's dashboard, billing, and team management on top of hardware you control.
- Run **Futrou Nasua standalone** if you don't need any of Futrou Cloud's account layer — just a single orchestrator managed directly from the Futrou CLI or its own API.

See each piece's own page for details: [Futrou Cloud](/docs/cloud/), [Futrou Nasua](/docs/nasua/), [Futrou CLI](/docs/cli/).