---
title: "A decentralized packet network"
---

Ouroboros is a peer-to-peer transport network that follows a UNIX
design philosphy, with minimal packet headers. The aim is to provide a
secure and private networking experience. Ouroboros provides its own
name resolution, reliability mechanisms, routing algorithms, and
congestion control. It can be overlayed on top of UDP and Ethernet,
and IP applications can be tunneled over Ouroboros.

Ouroboros is [free
software](https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software), written in
C for and its application library provides a simple, unified API for
synchronous and asynchronous Inter-Process Communication (IPC) and
networking.

The best places to start exploring Ouroboros is this introduction
presented at [FOSDEM
2018](https://www.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/ipc/), and the [PhD
dissertation](https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8615152) of Sander Vrijders, especially chapters 5-6.

This new website is currently under construction and undergoing
frequent updates. The documentation is still sparse, please don't
hesitate to [contact us](/contribute) with any questions you might
have.