---
title: Overview
description: What Punkolink L7 is, what it isn't, and where it sits in your stack.
next: quickstart.md
nextTitle: Quickstart
---

Punkolink L7 — which we'll refer to simply as L7 from here on out—is a proprietary application-layer router written in Rust and built on top of Pingora, Cloudflare's open-source proxy framework. It handles routing, access control and load balancing for your infrastructure.

## Who this is for

You need independence from SaaS as it’s commonly understood. You want to receive a binary file and an API key and manage the infrastructure yourself. Or you are looking for an enterprise partner who will provide support for your edge infrastructure throughout your product’s entire lifecycle.

## Not a good fit

If you're a startup building on an open-source stack, L7 is probably not the right choice—you'd be paying for capabilities you can assemble yourself. Take a look at Nginx or Pingora directly: they're free, battle-tested, and will give you a solid foundation. We list alternatives and comparisons in [Alternatives](#alternatives).

## Where to go next

If you already know what you're routing, skip ahead to [Quickstart](#quickstart).