The internet retrieves files by location. IPFS retrieves them by content — and that single shift changes everything.
The way we store and retrieve files online has barely changed since the web was invented. You type a URL, your browser contacts a specific server, and that server sends you the file. Simple enough — until that server goes down, gets overloaded, or disappears entirely.
Enter IPFS: a fundamentally different approach to how data lives on the internet.
IPFS stands for the InterPlanetary File System. Despite the sci-fi name, it's a practical open-source protocol designed to make the web faster, more resilient, and more decentralised. Created by Protocol Labs, it was first released in 2015.
At its core, IPFS replaces the traditional location-based model of finding files with a content-based model. Instead of asking "where is this file?", IPFS asks "what is this file?" — and finds it from whoever has it.
With conventional web hosting, every file lives on a specific server at a specific address. This model has worked for decades, but it carries inherent weaknesses:
When you add a file to IPFS, it receives a unique identifier called a CID (Content Identifier) — a cryptographic hash of the file's actual content. Change a single byte and the CID changes. This makes files tamper-evident by design.
Files aren't stored on one central server. They're distributed across many nodes — computers running the IPFS software worldwide. Anyone can run a node, pin files they care about, and contribute to the network. Popular files get cached across many nodes automatically.
IPFS uses a Merkle DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) to represent files. Large files are split into blocks, each with its own CID and linked together. Identical chunks of data are stored only once across the entire network — efficient deduplication built in.
| Feature | Traditional Hosting | IPFS |
|---|---|---|
| File retrieval | By location (URL/IP) | By content (CID hash) |
| Infrastructure | Centralised servers | Distributed peer-to-peer |
| Uptime | Depends on one server | Resilient across many nodes |
| Bandwidth costs | All traffic hits your server | Traffic distributed across nodes |
| Censorship resistance | Single point to block | No central point to shut down |
| Data integrity | Trust the server | Cryptographically verified |
| Link permanence | URLs can break | CIDs are permanent |
No single point of failure. If one node goes offline, files remain available from others.
Popular content cached across the network is served by nearby nodes, not your origin server. This can dramatically reduce hosting costs for widely-accessed files.
Content is pulled from the nearest available node — not one specific geographic data centre. Global audiences benefit from genuinely local delivery.
A CID is tied to specific content. No one can silently alter a file and serve it under the same identifier. Invaluable for archives, legal documents, and scientific data.
Blocking a traditional website means blocking a domain or IP — straightforward for any ISP or government. Blocking IPFS content means blocking every node worldwide that holds it. There's no single server to take down.
The Merkle DAG means identical data is never stored twice. Highly efficient for large datasets, software packages, or versioned files with shared content.
Persistence requires pinning. Files are only available while at least one node has chosen to keep them. Services like Pinata offer paid pinning to ensure files stay on the network.
Content is immutable. Updating a file produces a new CID. IPNS (InterPlanetary Name System) provides mutable pointers but adds complexity.
Speed can vary. Retrieval depends on how many nodes have your content. Freshly uploaded files with few peers can be slow.
Not yet mainstream. Brave has native IPFS support; most browsers still require extensions or HTTP gateways. The ecosystem is maturing, but not seamless everywhere yet.
You can access IPFS content right now through public HTTP gateways like https://ipfs.io/ipfs/<CID> — no installation required. To host content yourself, IPFS Desktop offers a user-friendly starting point, while the Kubo command-line client is the choice for developers.
For web hosting specifically, Fleek and Web3.Storage abstract away most of the complexity, letting you deploy sites to IPFS much like pushing to Netlify or Vercel.
IPFS represents a genuine rethinking of how the web stores and delivers information. By replacing location-based addressing with content-based addressing — and distributing data across a peer-to-peer network — it solves core weaknesses of traditional hosting: single points of failure, link rot, geographic bottlenecks, and censorship vulnerability.
The ecosystem is still maturing, and practical challenges around persistence and browser support remain. But for developers, archivists, and anyone building for the open web, IPFS is increasingly hard to ignore. The web has been centralised for long enough.