Bonjour is Apple's implementation of zero-configuration networking (zeroconf), a group of technologies that includes service discovery, address assignment, and hostname resolution.

Apple's "Remote" application for iPhone and iPod Touch also uses Bonjour to establish connection to iTunes libraries via Wi-Fi.

[3] Bonjour only works within a single broadcast domain, which is usually a small area, without special DNS configuration.

The project provides source code to build the responder daemon for a wide range of platforms, including Mac OS 9, macOS, Linux, *BSD, Solaris, VxWorks, and Windows.

[4] Apple originally introduced the Bonjour software in August 2002 as part of Mac OS X 10.2 under the name "Rendezvous".

[8][9] Some third-party applications, such as Adobe's Photoshop CS3 suite,[10] also come bundled with Bonjour to take advantage of zeroconf technology.

Communications across the network take place over UDP port 5353, which may require reconfiguring some personal or corporate firewalls that block Bonjour packets.

A full installation of Bonjour for Windows will include a plug-in for Internet Explorer, a printer wizard, and the network communication services.

[12] In 32- and 64-bit releases of Windows 7, some older but still available versions of Bonjour services can disable all network connectivity by adding an entry of 0.0.0.0 as the default gateway.

[14] A student research project at Columbia University produced a Java-based system to match the functionality of Bonjour Browser, called JBonjourBrowser.

JBonjourBrowser was built to emulate the functionality of Bonjour Browser, and at the same time work on multiple platforms.

A native Windows application offers similar functions to Bonjour Browser for Mac OS.