> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developer.hellgate.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Compose vs. Composed
> The Hellgate Cloud Platform offers individual composable services and as well as the ready to go composed version of it - Commerce.
The Hellgate Cloud Platform follows two distinct usage patterns: **composing services yourself** or **using Commerce**, which is already composed for you.
## Composable Services
The platform's individual services each do one thing well and are designed to slot into any payment stack. You pick the ones you need and compose them yourself.
PCI-compliant tokenization vault. Stores card data, manages PCI tokens, network tokens, and generic tokens. The compliance layer underneath any payment stack.
Real-time fraud intelligence. Scores every transaction as it passes through your payment flow.
PSP abstraction layer. One integration, access to acquirers and payment service providers globally.
Coming Soon
Orchestration fabric. Routes payment flows between acquirers, PSPs, and fraud tools with intelligent routing and automatic retries.
Each service is standalone and built for composablity.
## Commerce: The Composed Product
Commerce is a complete and opinionated payment orchestration service built by composing our platform's own services. It provides ready-made implementations of the capabilities most payment businesses need:
* **Payments** — CIT, MIT, and the payment lifecycle management
* **Authentications** — 3-D Secure and FIDO (Passkeys)
* **Ecosystem enablement** — marketplace and partner network operating models
Under the hood, Commerce routes through Hub to Guardian (tokenization), Link (PSP connectivity), and Specter (fraud intelligence) — the same services that will be made available to you as standalone components.
This means Commerce is not a walled garden. It is a production-proven composition of the same building blocks you have access to. If you ever want to build your own stack, the components are already there.
## Progressive Enhancement: BYOG
Even when using Commerce, you can still exercise composability.
By default, Hellgate manages a Guardian instance for sensitive data stored in your Commerce account.
If you already operate a Guardian instance yourself, you can connect it instead.
This is called **Bring Your Own Guardian (BYOG)**. Commerce continues to handle payments, authentications, and ecosystem operations — the Guardian component is simply replaced with yours.
BYOG lets you:
* **Reuse existing tokens** — tokens are accessible in both services
* **Control the token store** — card data stays in the Guardian instance you own
* **Bridge both patterns** — operate Guardian standalone and Commerce against the same underlying data
BYOG is configured at the Commerce account level. Contact our support to set it up.
## Choosing Your Approach
Choose individual services when you want to build custom payment orchestration and need specific components — a compliance layer, a fraud engine, a PSP connector — without adopting a pre-built product.
Start with **Guardian** for PCI tokenization, the most commonly needed component. Additional services are releasing progressively.
Choose **Commerce** when you want a production-ready payment orchestration service — payments, authentications, ecosystem support — without building each layer yourself.
**Commerce** is a faster path to a complete payment stack. It is built from the same platform services, so you are not locked in.