# Local

## Hostless

Scuttlebutt is hostless: each computer installs the same copy of software and has equal rights in the network.

While there are [public peer servers](./pub.html), they are identical to the client peers rather than a special role. We feel that this doesn't make it not a peer to peer protocol, since anyone can run them, and your identity is not tied to them as in `email@domain`.

## Local-Area Networks

Devices discover each other over the LAN with multicast UDP and sync automatically.