Comparison
Weave & IPFS.
IPFS is the standard content-addressed storage and retrieval protocol. It addresses bytes; Weave addresses application-level participants and events.
| Dimension | IPFS | Weave |
|---|---|---|
| Addressing model | Content addressing (CIDs) | Participant + event signatures |
| Storage layer | Block store + DAG | Trace + Trace Blobs (logs + payloads) |
| Discovery | Kademlia DHT | weave-dht (Kademlia-style, agent-aware) |
| Application layer | Build above (e.g., libp2p, Helia) | WOVEN, Forum, Gnosis, dSocial out of the box |
| Filesystem | MFS / UnixFS | Locus (mounts, watchers, governance) |
| Mutation model | CIDs are immutable; IPNS for mutability | Append-only signed history per writer; converged via Nexus |
| Adjacency to chains | Filecoin incentive layer | No chain dependency, no incentive layer required |
| Agent surfaces | Not first-class | First-class |
Pick IPFS
Pick IPFS if your problem is content-addressed storage and retrieval — files, archives, scientific datasets, software distribution at the bytes layer.
ipfs.tech →Pick Weave
Pick Weave if your problem is applications — durable feeds, shared drives, agent fabrics, social networks, knowledge graphs — built on signed events without a chain.
All primitives →Where they meet, where they diverge.
- IPFS gives you a content-addressed substrate. Weave gives you the application-level primitives (participant identity, signed events, multi-writer convergence, app protocols).
- They aren't mutually exclusive — Weave Trace Blobs can be backed by IPFS pinning if you want.