No. You can use Core on its own, develop business features with coding tools such as Claude Code or Codex in your application directory, and organize testing, reviews, and deployment within your team. Start with Develop your first app.
Core provides the foundation and development conventions for your application. Studio coordinates collaboration between people and agents. It is useful when a team needs to advance multiple projects and tasks, track progress, and organize checks and acceptance. Applications built either way run on Core.
To explore Studio, see Collaborate with Studio. For installation and team configuration, see the setup overview.