Because Fontconfig grew out of the font configuration architecture designed for Xft, Xft remains rather tightly coupled to Fontconfig. Fontconfig does not use any X libraries or include files, so it can be used by non-X applications, but Xft cannot be used without Fontconfig. The role of Xft has been greatly simplified; it now serves as a conduit to transfer glyphs rasterized by FreeType to the X server, either using the Render extension or (more slowly) using the core X protocol.