# Why use Beaker?

Traditionally on the Web, servers host websites and manage user data. With Beaker, **users** host websites and manage user data. Beaker is a new approach to the Web and to online applications.

## No backend, no DevOps

Beaker connects users with a peer-to-peer mesh. Applications run as [client-side SPAs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-page_application) and store their data in networked folders.

For many applications, this means that no server or backend is needed. You create your app from the browser and then share its URL with your audience – and that's it! They'll fetch the application from you and use their own device to run the software.

## View & edit source

Because Beaker applications run on the client, the entire source of the app is available in the browser. Beaker includes a [builtin editor](https://beaker-browser.gitbook.io/docs/beginner/using-the-editor) so you can access this source code immediately.

Hyperdrive is a complete filesystem and so Beaker's editor can edit the files with no problem. You can build your entire application without ever using another tool.

## Distributed (and reduced) costs

When you don't have to set up a server, you don't have to *pay* for a server. Effectively every user is contributing their own bandwidth, compute, and storage to run the application. That means that you, as a developer, are no longer shouldering the hosting costs alone.

## A global hypermedia filesystem

Hyperdrive is a filesystem where every folder and file has a URL. Everything is linkable, and everything is accessible over the Internet (pursuant to access controls, of course).

Applications use this linkability to join data across users and apps. There are no data siloes on the Beaker Web.

## Versioned data

Hyperdrive is a versioned filesystem. You can access old revisions of files and link to pinned versions. This is helpful for referencing specific copies, viewing changes over time, and recovering from bad writes or deletes.


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