This section walks through how to get started with Boundary. You’ll learn how Boundary provides access to private endpoints securely.

There are two options to get started with Boundary:

• HCP Boundary is a managed offering of the Boundary product, and is the easiest way to get started. It streamlines deployment and operations, and is available as a freemium service. HCP Boundary allows users to run their own worker proxies, preventing exposure of your network to HashiCorp or clients. Some enterprise features are only available with HCP Boundary. Review the Get started with HCP Boundary page to learn more.
• Boundary OSS is an open source distribution of Boundary that users can run in their own environments. The Getting Started with Boundary OSS page discusses running Boundary in Dev mode on your local machine, allowing you to get started with the OSS distribution quickly.

We recommend you use the Boundary model that best meets your intended use case. If you’re not sure what’s best for you, we recommend reviewing the Getting started with HCP Boundary page.

Key Concepts

Before getting started with Boundary, it's important to understand a few key concepts. Please consult our Boundary concepts page to familiarize yourself with Boundary's architecture and terminology.