---
title: "Getting started"
slug: "getting-started"
tags: ["Getting started", "concepts", "principles"]
status: "update"
updated: 2025-12-03T09:46:36Z
published: 2025-12-03T09:46:36Z
canonical: "support.lusid.com/getting-started"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://support.lusid.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Getting started

LUSID is an API-first, SaaS-native [investment data management platform](https://www.finbourne.com/).

The knowledge base contains articles to support a variety of users:

- **Developers:** Lots of the tutorials in this knowledge base are aimed at developers, and assume experience with APIs and SDKs. [Get started with the LUSID REST API](/v1/docs/getting-started-with-the-lusid-rest-api-and-sdks).
- **Business users:** The [LUSID web app](/v1/docs/starting-a-free-trial-and-exploring-the-lusid-web-app) is designed to be an intuitive, no-code gateway to LUSID. You may find conceptual material in this knowledge base useful, for example to understand what LUSID means by an instrument, a transaction, a holding and so on.
- **Business analysts:** You may want to consult the [Luminesce documentation](/v1/docs/luminesce-and-lumipy). Luminesce is a SQLite-based data virtualisation tool that provides high-performance read/write access to LUSID, its supporting applications, and numerous 3rd party data sources.

The [fundamental principles of LUSID](/v1/docs/fundamental-principles-of-lusid) are likely to be useful for everyone.