Slate lets you build rich, intuitive editors like those in [Medium](https://medium.com/), [Dropbox Paper](https://www.dropbox.com/paper) or [Canvas](https://usecanvas.com/)—which are becoming table stakes for applications on the web—without your codebase getting mired in complexity.
It can do this because all of its logic is implemented with a series of plugins, so you aren't ever constrained by what _is_ or _isn't_ in "core". You can think of it like a pluggable implementation of `contenteditable`, built on top of React and Immutable. It was inspired by libraries like [Draft.js](https://facebook.github.io/draft-js/), [Prosemirror](http://prosemirror.net/) and [Quill](http://quilljs.com/).
_Slate is currently in **beta**, while work is being done on: cross-browser support, atomic node support, and collaboration support. It's useable now, but you might need to pull request one or two fixes for your use case._
1.**First-class plugins.** The most important part of Slate is that plugins are first-class entities—the core editor logic is even implemented as its own plugin. That means you can _completely_ customize the editing experience, to build complex editors like Medium's or Canvas's without having to fight against the library's assumptions.
2.**Schema-less core.** Slate's core logic doesn't assume anything about the schema of the data you'll be editing, which means that there are no assumptions baked into the library that'll trip you up when you need to go beyond basic usage.
3.**Nested document model.** The document model used for Slate is a nested, recursive tree, just like the DOM itself. This means that creating complex components like tables or nested block quotes are possible for advanced use cases. But it's also easy to keep it simple by only using a single level of hierachy.
4.**Stateless and immutable data.** By using React and Immutable.js, the Slate editor is built in a stateless fashion using immutable data structures, which leads to better performance, and also a much easier time writing plugins.
5.**Intuitive transforms.** Slate's content is edited using "transforms", that are designed to be extremely intuitive to use, so that writing plugins and custom functionality is as simple as possible.
6.**Collaboration-ready data model.** The data model Slate uses—specifically how transforms are applied to the document—has been designed to allow for collaborative editing to be layered on top, so you won't need to rethink everything if you decide to make your editor collaborative. (More work is required on this!)
If you're using Slate for the first time, check out the [Getting Started](./docs/guides/installing-slate.md) guides and the [Core Concepts](./docs/concepts) to familiarize yourself with Slate's architecture and mental models. Once you've gotten familiar with those, you'll probably want to check out the full [API Reference](./docs/reference).
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