ANNIS is a web-based search and visualization architecture for multi-layer corpora. ANNIS consists of two major components: a backend service and a web front-end. There is also a local version, ANNIS Kickstarter, which is a simple starting point for new users who want to try out the system without installing a full server.

The service runs on a web server such as Tomcat or Jetty and communicates with a relational database, using the open source DB PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL (Version 9.4 or larger) must be installed for ANNIS to work. For more information on installing and managing the backend service, see the Administration Guide in the documentation.

The ANNIS front-end is a web application implemented in Java and the Vaadin framework and runs in a normal browser (we recommend Mozilla Firefox). The server running the web-application communicates with the backend service via a REST interface.

ANNIS Kickstarter is a cross-platform local version which requires nothing but a PostgreSQL installation to run. It will run under LINUX, Windows and Mac. For a quick tutorial to get started with Kickstarter, see the ANNIS User Guide.