---
sidebar_position: 1
title: Introduction
keywords: ["getting started", "openbb", "api", "beginner guide", "how to use openbb", "openbb keys", "openbb terminal", "openbb", "terminal"]
excerpt: "This page guides you how to use the OpenBB terminal, developed by OpenBB."
description: "The OpenBB Documentation provides guidance on how to use the OpenBB Terminal, a free, custom built
financial terminal that will help you make more informed decisions, faster."
---

import Card from "@site/src/components/General/Card";

OpenBB is a leading open source investment research software platform for accessing and analyzing financial market data. We represent millions of investors who want to leverage state-of-the-art data science and machine learning technologies to make sense of raw unrefined data. Our mission is to make investment research effective, powerful and accessible to everyone.

Want to contribute? Check out our [CONTRIBUTING GUIDELINES](https://github.com/OpenBB-finance/OpenBBTerminal/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md).

---

**The OpenBB Terminal is Free and Open-Source (FOSS)**

<div className="grid-child">

[![Stargazers][stars-shield]][stars-url] [![Forks][forks-shield]][forks-url]
[![Contributors][contributors-shield]][contributors-url]
[![MIT License][license-shield]][license-url]
[![Twitter][twitter-shield]][twitter-url]

</div>

---

<Card
	title="Why Free?"
	description="We believe that everyone should be able to have the same tooling to do
	investment research. By leveraging free API tiers, we can allow users to have
	access to a vast range of information for free. On the other hand, we want users
	that are willing to subscribe to premium API keys from certain data providers to
	be able to take advantage of that on OpenBB Terminal - this is where we see a
	monetization opportunity, a revenue share with data providers for connecting our
	users to their resources."
/>

<Card
	title="Why Open Source?"
	description="An open source product allows for higher quality, lower costs, more
	transparency, and faster go-to-market due to the strong community created. There
	is no point in re-inventing the wheel for financial theory that has been around
	for decades, thus users can adapt the platform to their needs or even build
	proprietary features on top of our infrastructure."
 />

 <Card
	title="Why Python?"
	description="Python is one of the most used programming languages due to its simplified
	syntax and shallow learning curve. On top of this, it is highly used in data
	science and academia world (particularly on finance, economics or business
	related degrees). This is very important, as it is the first time in history
	that users - regardless of their background - can so easily add features to an
	investment research platform."
 />

---

Want to learn how to install the OpenBB Terminal? Check out our [Installation](/terminal/quickstart/installation) guide.

Want to know how to import and export data? Check out our [Data Import/Export](/terminal/guides/advanced/data)

Looking for personalized routines? Check out our [User Routines](/terminal/guides/advanced/scripts-and-routines)

[contributors-shield]: https://img.shields.io/github/contributors/OpenBB-finance/OpenBBTerminal.svg?style=for-the-badge
[contributors-url]: https://github.com/OpenBB-finance/OpenBBTerminal/graphs/contributors
[forks-shield]: https://img.shields.io/github/forks/OpenBB-finance/OpenBBTerminal.svg?style=for-the-badge
[forks-url]: https://github.com/OpenBB-finance/OpenBBTerminal/network/members
[stars-shield]: https://img.shields.io/github/stars/OpenBB-finance/OpenBBTerminal.svg?style=for-the-badge
[stars-url]: https://github.com/OpenBB-finance/OpenBBTerminal/stargazers
[issues-shield]: https://img.shields.io/github/issues/OpenBB-finance/OpenBBTerminal.svg?style=for-the-badge&color=blue
[issues-url]: https://github.com/OpenBB-finance/OpenBBTerminal/issues
[bugs-open-shield]: https://img.shields.io/github/issues/OpenBB-finance/OpenBBTerminal/bug.svg?style=for-the-badge&color=yellow
[bugs-open-url]: https://github.com/OpenBB-finance/OpenBBTerminal/issues?q=is%3Aissue+label%3Abug+is%3Aopen
[bugs-closed-shield]: https://img.shields.io/github/issues-closed/OpenBB-finance/OpenBBTerminal/bug.svg?style=for-the-badge&color=success
[bugs-closed-url]: https://github.com/OpenBB-finance/OpenBBTerminal/issues?q=is%3Aissue+label%3Abug+is%3Aclosed
[license-shield]: https://img.shields.io/github/license/OpenBB-finance/OpenBBTerminal.svg?style=for-the-badge
[license-url]: https://github.com/OpenBB-finance/OpenBBTerminal/blob/main/LICENSE
[twitter-shield]: https://img.shields.io/twitter/follow/openbb_finance?style=for-the-badge&color=blue
[twitter-url]: https://twitter.com/openbb_finance