Terminology

Before you get too far ahead, take a minute to familiarize yourself with our terminology – we'll be referencing this often throughout these guides.

Term	Definition
Connection	A connection represents each time an end user links an app to Alloy's Unified API. For example, if your end user connects to NetSuite, that would count as a single connection.
ISV	ISV stands for "Independent Software Vendor". If you are reading this doc with the hope of implementing Alloy Unified API, you are an ISV. The ISV implements Alloy Unified API into their product. We refer to the ISV as "you" throughout the documentation.
End User	An end user, also known simply as a user, represents a tenant on your platform. For example, let's assume your customer, Bob, wants to connect to NetSuite. You'll need to create a user via our POST Create User endpoint before you can instantiate a connection to NetSuite.
Connector	A connector, also known as an app or integration, represents the 3rd party application you want your end users to connect to. Common examples include Shopify, Magento, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, NetSuite, Sage, etc.
Connector Category	A connector category refers to the type of connector you are looking to build. For example, Alloy Unified API supports a Commerce category and an ERP category (to name a few). Within each category, ISVs can build atop unified schemas for specific apps (i.e. Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, etc all belong to the "Commerce" category).
Model	The term "model" refers to the common schemas we support across multiple Third Party Apps. For example, Alloy's Unified API provides a Commerce schema for Orders, Products, etc. Our schema maps various Third Party Apps to the same common format so you can easily build and deploy multiple integrations quickly and seamlessly – at scale.