Ardor is a Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform that is an evolution of the NXT platform, both of which were launched by Dutch company Jelurida. Founded in 2017, Ardor is a platform that enables individuals and businesses substantial convenience and freedom in developing decentralized applications (DApps) and services on its blockchain.

Ardor is a multi-chain platform and uses child chains for the DApps. The Ardor chain is the parent chain to all of the DApp side chains. The parent chain grants security and transaction processing capabilities, while only business-ready functionality is present on the child chains.

The platform uses a Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm and smart contracts written in Java. Child chains have their native tokens, while the Ardor chain uses the ARDR token. The most important feature, however, is child chain interoperability - which allows tokens and data to be transferred between child chains. 

As a BaaS platform, Ardor provides several features that developers can implement. Besides child chain and token creation, developers can also implement decentralized messaging, voting mechanisms, marketplaces and monetary systems, as well as rudimentary decentralized cloud storage services.

In 2019, the team completed several major milestones. This includes developments on child chain control infrastructure, lightweight contracts and child chain work. Q3 and Q4 2019 will bring full nodes for Android devices, hardware wallet integration, and pruning and snapshots on the Testnet.