= What RESTHeart Cloud is
:nav-title: Overview
:description: A backend for web, mobile and AI apps: sign-up and login, permissions, payments, live data and an MCP server for agents, on a managed MongoDB.
:keywords: backend for web apps, backend for mobile apps, backend as a service, user authentication, Stripe payments backend, MongoDB API, MCP server, AI agent backend
:group: Start
:order: 10

RESTHeart Cloud gives your app a backend without you building one. Sign-up and login, permissions, payments, email, live data and an MCP server for AI agents are there the moment you create a service. You write the app. The backend is configured, not coded.

It is for people who build **web apps, mobile apps and AI apps**: React, Angular, Vue and Next.js on the web, iOS and Android over plain HTTPS, agents over MCP.

== What you get

Every service comes with all of this. Nothing to install on a server, nothing to deploy.

[cols="1,3"]
|===
| Area | What it does for your app

| **Accounts**
| Sign-up, login, email verification, password reset, login with Google, teams and invitations. xref:signup-mgmt.adoc[Sign-up management], xref:managing-users.adoc[users] and xref:managing-permissions.adoc[permissions].

| **Data**
| A managed MongoDB behind REST, GraphQL and WebSocket APIs. xref:managing-data.adoc[Collections and documents], xref:schemas.adoc[schemas], xref:aggregations.adoc[aggregations] and xref:change-streams.adoc[live updates].

| **Payments**
| Subscriptions and one-off purchases with Stripe, from a checkout button in your app. xref:stripe.adoc[Stripe billing].

| **AI**
| Publish your data to Claude, ChatGPT or your own agents over the Model Context Protocol. xref:mcp.adoc[MCP server] and xref:api-keys.adoc[API keys].

| **Email and events**
| Transactional email, and webhooks that call your endpoints when something happens. xref:emails.adoc[Email] and xref:webhooks.adoc[webhooks].

| **Rules**
| Your own rules on who may do what, enforced on the server where the client cannot talk its way past them. xref:guards.adoc[Guards] and xref:origin-allowlist.adoc[origin allowlist].
|===

== How you use it

. **Create a service** in the console. The free tier needs no card.
. **Install the Kit** in your app: `npm install @restheart-cloud/kit-react`, or `kit-ng`, or `kit-vue`. It gives you `login`, `checkSession`, `usePayments` and the rest of what an app needs from a backend. See xref:kit.adoc[the Cloud Kit].
. **Configure instead of coding.** Collections, permissions, plugins and their settings are set in the console, or from a file in git with xref:cli.adoc[`rhc`].

Start with xref:getting-started.adoc[Getting Started]: a service, a user and a first request in a few minutes.

== Plans

**Free** to try and to learn. **Shared** for apps in production. **Dedicated** for isolated infrastructure, your own MongoDB and your own plugins. xref:plans.adoc[What differs between plans], and the https://cloud.restheart.com/pricing[pricing].

== Under the hood

RESTHeart Cloud runs https://restheart.org[RESTHeart], open source since 2014, on infrastructure we manage in the EU. Everything travels over HTTPS, users are authenticated with JWT, and every request is checked against your permissions before it touches the data. If you outgrow what the console offers, a Dedicated service takes plugins you write with the open-source framework.