Deployment models - NetlyDB documentation

Three shapes of deployment

Shape	What runs	Edition	Status
Embedded	Your application with the NetlyDB engine in-process, storing data in a local directory.	Community	Available
Embedded with hosted modules	The same process additionally hosts the REST API, the Management UI and/or the MCP server, each on its own port.	Enterprise (per module)	Available
Cluster	Several application processes, each with its own engine and full copy of the data, replicating peer-to-peer.	Enterprise	Available

The modules are registrations on the same service collection; adding one does not change how your application uses its collections.

builder.Services
    .AddNetlyDB(options =>
    {
        options.License.LicenseFilePath = "/etc/netlydb/netlydb.lic"; // the modules below are Enterprise features
        options.Security.ApiKeyHashes = [apiKeyHash];                 // required: the hosted modules authenticate by default
    })
    .AddNetlyDBCollection<Order>();

// Each module is a separate registration on the service collection.
builder.Services.AddNetlyDBAPI(port: 9020);
builder.Services.AddNetlyDBManagementUI(webappPort: 9021, apiPort: 9020);
builder.Services.AddNetlyDBMCP(port: 9026, path: "/mcp", maxResultLimit: 100, allowedCollections: ["Order"]);

The three shapes. The hosted modules run inside the same process as the engine, each on its own localhost port; a cluster is several such processes, each with a full copy.

Network exposure

The REST API, Management UI and MCP server bind to localhost. Reaching them from another machine requires a reverse proxy you configure and secure.
An unclustered node's internal listeners bind to loopback only; see what an embedded host starts.
The hosted modules require authentication by default and refuse to start without credentials; see Authentication.

Third-party packages for the modules

Each hosted module ships inside NetlyDB.SDK, but the third-party packages it needs (for example ASP.NET Core OpenAPI and JWT packages, or the Model Context Protocol SDK) are referenced by your application. Without them the registration throws NetlyDBOptionalFeatureUnavailableException (NDB-LIFE-0064) naming what is missing. The list is on Packages.

Not available

Remote client access - an application using a NetlyDB database that runs in another process through the SDK's collection API - is not available. Out-of-process access is through the REST API or MCP server. A supported remote client is under consideration for the roadmap, and may not be built.