---
title: Introduction
pageTitle: Anchor - Introduction
description: Anchor is a framework for building secure Solana programs, often called 'smart contracts'.
---

Anchor is a framework for quickly building secure Solana programs.{% .lead %}

{% link-grid %}

{% link-grid-link title="Installation" icon="installation" href="/docs/installation" description="Step-by-step guides to setting up your system and installing Anchor." /%}

{% link-grid-link title="Intro to Solana" icon="presets" href="/docs/intro-to-solana" description="Brief intro to programming on Solana." /%}

{% link-grid-link title="High-Level Overview" icon="plugins" href="/docs/high-level-overview" description="High-Level Overview of an Anchor program." /%}

{% link-grid-link title="CLI reference" icon="theming" href="/docs/cli" description="A CLI is provided to support building and managing an Anchor workspace." /%}

{% /link-grid %}

---

## What is Anchor

With Anchor you can quickly build secure Solana programs, sometimes called 'smart contracts', because: 

 - Anchor writes various boilerplate for you such as (de)serialization of accounts and instruction data.
 - Anchor handles certain security checks for you, and allows you to succinctly define additional checks and keep them separate from your business logic.

Both of these aspects mean that instead of working on the tedious parts of raw Solana programs, you can spend more time working on what matters most, your product.

### Twitter

[Stay up to date on Twitter](https://twitter.com/anchorlang)

### Join the community

[Discord Invitation](https://discord.gg/NHHGSXAnXk)
