InterPlanetary File System

Protocol implementations: Go (reference implementation), JavaScript , C (obsolete), Python
Client libraries: Go, Java , JavaScript, Python, Scala, Haskell, Swift, Common Lisp, Rust, Ruby, PHP, C#, Erlang

InterPlanetary File System
InterPlanetary File System
Original author(s)	Juan Benet and Protocol Labs
Developer(s)	Protocol Labs
Initial release	February 2015
Stable release	0.35.0 / 21 May 2025
Repository	github.com/ipfs/ipfs
Written in	Protocol implementations: Go (reference implementation), JavaScript, C (obsolete), Python; Client libraries: Go, Java, JavaScript, Python, Scala, Haskell, Swift, Common Lisp, Rust, Ruby, PHP, C#, Erlang;
Available in	Go, JavaScript, Python
Type	Protocol,; distributed file system,; content delivery network;
License	MIT license, Apache license 2.0
Website	ipfs.tech

The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a protocol, hypermedia and file sharing peer-to-peer network for sharing data using a distributed hash table to store provider information. By using content addressing, IPFS uniquely identifies each file in a global namespace that connects IPFS hosts, creating a distributed system of file storage and sharing.

IPFS allows users to host and receive content in a manner similar to BitTorrent. As opposed to a centrally located server, IPFS is built around a decentralized system of user-operators who hold a portion of the overall data. Any user in the network can serve a file by its content address, and other peers in the network can find and request that content from any node who has it using a distributed hash table (DHT).

In contrast to traditional location-based protocols like HTTP and HTTPS, IPFS uses content-based addressing to provide a decentralized alternative for distributing the World Wide Web.