---
title: Quick Start
description:
  Learn Solana development basics. Create your first program, understand
  accounts, send transactions, and explore PDAs and CPIs using Solana Playground
  - no installation required.
h1: Quick Start
---

Welcome to the Solana quick start guide! This hands-on guide will introduce you
to the **Solana Playground** (Solpg), where you can learn core-concepts,
regardless of your prior experience. In this tutorial, you will learn about:

- **Solana accounts**: How the Solana network stores data
- **Sending transactions**: How to interact with the Solana network by sending
  transactions
- **Building and deploying programs**: Create your first Solana program and
  deploy it to the network
- **Program-Derived addresses**: Learn how to create deterministic addresses for
  accounts
- **Cross-Program Invocations**: Learn how to call other programs from within
  your program, enabling complex interactions and program composability

## The Solana Playground

The Solana Playground is a browser-based development environment that allows you
to develop, deploy, and test Solana programs without installing anything
locally. Follow along, copy, and paste code, and see results immediately. Basic
programming knowledge helps but is not required. Time to dive in and start
building with Solana!

As a new user, the first step to interacting with the Solana Playground is to
create a Playground [wallet](/docs/references/terminology#wallet) and add
[SOL](/docs/references/terminology#sol). This wallet will allow you to interact
with the Solana network directly from your browser.

## Create a Playground wallet

<Steps>
<Step>

### Navigate to the Solana Playground

Using your web browser, navigate to the
[Solana Playground](https://beta.solpg.io/).

</Step>
<Step>

### Connect to the Playground

Click the 🔴 **Not connected** text at the bottom left corner of the screen.

![Not Connected](/assets/docs/intro/quickstart/pg-not-connected.png)

</Step>
<Step>

### Save your keypair

Click **Save keypair** to save your key pair locally. When you're ready, click
**Continue**.

![Create Playground Wallet](/assets/docs/intro/quickstart/pg-create-wallet.png)

At the bottom of the screen, you will see that you are now connected to the
Playground wallet. You will also see the
[connected cluster](/docs/references/terminology#cluster) (`devnet`), the
[wallet address](/docs/references/terminology#wallet), and your
[SOL](/docs/references/terminology#sol) balance.

![Connected](/assets/docs/intro/quickstart/pg-connected.png)

<Callout>
  Your browser's local storage saves your Playground wallet. Clearing your
  browser cache will remove your saved wallet.
</Callout>

<Callout type="warn">
  Use your Playground wallet for testing and development only. Never send real
  assets (from [`mainnet`](/docs/references/terminology#cluster)) to this
  address.
</Callout>

Congratulations! You created your first Solana Wallet. You are now ready to add
SOL to your wallet.

</Step>
<Step>

### Add SOL to your wallet

Before starting development, you need to add devnet SOL to your wallet. As a
developer, SOL is used for two main use cases:

- To create new accounts for storing data or deploying programs
- Paying transaction fees when interacting with the Solana network

You can add devnet SOL to your wallet using the Playground terminal or with the
Devnet Faucet. Each option is described below:

#### Option 1: Use the Playground terminal

Run the following command in the Playground terminal:

```terminal
$ solana airdrop 5
```

#### Option 2: Use the Devnet faucet

If option 1 fails, due to rate limits or other errors, use Solana's
[Web Faucet](https://faucet.solana.com/).

- Enter your wallet address
- Select an amount
- Click **Confirm Airdrop**

![Faucet Airdrop](/assets/docs/intro/quickstart/faucet-airdrop.gif)

</Step>
</Steps>