Distributed.net is a volunteer computing effort that is attempting to solve large scale problems using otherwise idle CPU or GPU time. It is governed by Distributed Computing Technologies, Incorporated (DCTI), a non-profit organization under U.S. tax code 501(c)(3).

The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing is an open-source middleware system for volunteer computing. Developed originally to support SETI@home, it became the platform for many other applications in areas as diverse as medicine, molecular biology, mathematics, linguistics, climatology, environmental science, and astrophysics, among others. The purpose of BOINC is to enable researchers to utilize processing resources of personal computers and other devices around the world.