Think of a Garden like your own customizable "Google Apps". But what is better is that you can have it in the cloud, on your computer, or smartphone, and that you choose the apps you want, from whomever you want. And lastly, you have have the apps you install sync across all your devices, and with online sites.

The Bookmarks app running on a garden.

An example app, Couch Pirate.

Manage your apps...install, configure, and update them with ease.

App details, and configuration. Also manage application access.

Settings to quickly theme the menu. Full themes can also be installed.

• MORE PRIVACY

  Because garden apps don't force the use of their servers on you, you can sync your data yourself, to a place that you trust.

• CHEAPER TO PUBLISH

  The developer doesn't need to pay for the infrastructure. This makes it feasible to publish unhosted web apps as altruistic free software. Once an unhosted web app is set free into the public domain, it will be available forever.

• DECENTRALIZATION

  More robust/resilient architecture, with no Single Point of Failure.

• DATA FREEDOM

  With your data living beside the app, you own and have complete access to it. This is personal data freedom brought to the web.

• SCALABILITY

  Scalability is built into your garden web app from the start. Apps can be distributed through app stores, and each user runs their own local copy of the app while syncing their data to their own remote storage.

A Garden is founded on some amazing technology. Here are our roots:

Gardens apps use the power of HTML5, which is the platform of the web.

A garden runs on CouchDB - a NoSQL database that is fast, scalable, and pure awesome.

Iris Couch provides all the hosting for Garden20.

Kanso is the development tool to use to develop garden apps.

We would love to hear from you with thoughts, feedback or ideas. Here are some ways you can get to us:

• http://github.com/garden20/garden
• @garden20_

Garden apps are easy to develop, and distribute. Create html5 apps on top of the power of couchdb. Add some packaging information, and then push to a Garden Market.

Here are some links to get you started:

• Kanso to build your app.
• Making a Garden App
• Uploading your app to the Garden20 Market