Arweave vs IPFS for Credential Persistence

Arweave excels at providing permanent, tamper-proof persistence by using a novel endowment-based economic model. Paying a one-time, upfront fee (currently ~$0.02 per MB) guarantees your credential data is stored for a minimum of 200 years, backed by a growing endowment fund. This creates a permaweb of data where credentials like Verifiable Credentials (VCs) or soulbound tokens become immutable artifacts, ideal for long-term attestations and compliance.

IPFS takes a different approach by providing a decentralized, content-addressed network for data availability. Its strength is in efficient, peer-to-peer distribution and caching via its DHT (Distributed Hash Table). However, persistence is not guaranteed by the protocol itself; it relies on pinning services (like Pinata, Infura, or Filecoin) for long-term storage, introducing an ongoing cost and a potential centralization point for the pinner's uptime.

The key trade-off: If your priority is guaranteed, permanent persistence without ongoing management, choose Arweave. Its endowment model and Proof of Access consensus make it the definitive choice for credentials that must be verifiable decades from now. If you prioritize cost-effective, highly available distribution with flexible storage providers and can manage pinning contracts, choose IPFS, especially when paired with a robust pinning service or Filecoin for cryptoeconomic persistence guarantees.

Arweave excels at providing permanent, immutable data persistence by using a novel endowment-based economic model. This one-time fee, currently around $0.02 per MB, guarantees storage for a minimum of 200 years, making it the definitive choice for critical, long-term assets. For example, protocols like Solana use Arweave as their primary ledger archive, and credentialing platforms like Disco leverage it for permanent, verifiable attestations that must outlive any single organization.

IPFS takes a different approach by creating a distributed, content-addressed network without built-in persistence guarantees. This results in a powerful trade-off: while it offers exceptional flexibility and near-zero operational costs for active data, files are only stored as long as nodes (pinning services like Pinata or Filebase, or your own infrastructure) choose to host them. This makes IPFS ideal for dynamic, frequently accessed content in ecosystems like Polygon or Ethereum, where NFTs often reference IPFS-hosted metadata.

The key trade-off: If your priority is permanence and data sovereignty for credentials that must be trustlessly verifiable decades from now, choose Arweave. Its endowment model and decentralized miner network provide a unique "set-and-forget" guarantee. If you prioritize cost efficiency, flexibility, and integration with a dynamic web3 stack where you can manage pinning and caching, choose IPFS. Its widespread adoption and tooling (e.g., IPFS Cluster, Fleek) make it the default for applications where data lifecycle is actively managed.