InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) for Media vs Centralized CDNs

Decentralized Content Addressing: Files are referenced by cryptographic hash (CID), not location. This ensures content persists as long as one node hosts it, making takedowns nearly impossible. Critical for NFT metadata permanence (e.g., OpenSea) and archiving sensitive documents.

No egress fees: Once pinned to a service like Pinata or Filecoin, retrieval costs are fixed. Ideal for projects with predictable, high-volume static asset delivery (e.g., generative NFT art collections, game assets) where variable CDN egress fees would scale unpredictably.

Global Edge Network Optimization: Providers like Cloudflare, AWS CloudFront, and Fastly use Anycast routing and tier-1 backbones to deliver sub-50ms global latency. Essential for live streaming, high-traffic web apps, and low-latency API responses where user experience is paramount.

Mature Ecosystem: Seamless integration with CI/CD pipelines, real-time analytics, DDoS protection (WAF), and serverless compute at the edge (e.g., Cloudflare Workers). This reduces devops overhead for dynamic applications requiring A/B testing, instant purging, and complex routing rules.

Speed Depends on Proximity: Retrieval time hinges on the distance to the nearest peer hosting the content. Without a dedicated pinning service with gateway caching, performance is inconsistent. Problematic for real-time applications or serving users in regions with few IPFS nodes.

Vendor Lock-in & Control: Your content is subject to the CDN's terms of service, pricing changes, and potential regional outages. A single point of censorship or failure. A significant risk for decentralized applications (dApps) whose value proposition is anti-fragility and permissionless access.

Peer-to-peer global network: Content is served from the nearest node that has it cached, reducing latency for distributed users. This matters for global dApp frontends (e.g., Uniswap interface) and resilient data distribution where single-region CDN outages are unacceptable.

Clear pricing, integrated tooling: Pay-as-you-go models (e.g., ~$0.085/GB for egress) with predictable billing. Integrated with DDoS protection, WAF, and analytics. This matters for enterprise media platforms requiring detailed usage logs and budget-conscious startups that cannot manage a peer network.

Vulnerable to takedowns and outages: A legal request to AWS or Cloudflare can remove content globally. Regional outages (e.g., us-east-1) can cripple service. This matters for political speech platforms and decentralized protocols where uptime cannot rely on a single entity's infrastructure.

Predictable low latency: Edge servers deliver cached media in <100ms globally via providers like Cloudflare, Fastly, and Akamai. Predictable pricing: Pay-as-you-go models (e.g., AWS CloudFront) offer clear cost scaling with traffic. This matters for high-traffic applications like streaming (Netflix, Spotify) where user experience and budget forecasting are critical.

Centralized management: Full control over cache invalidation, geo-blocking, and access logs. Regulatory compliance: Easier to implement GDPR data handling and DMCA takedowns through a single vendor. This matters for enterprises in regulated industries (finance, media) that require audit trails and content moderation.

Single point of failure: Provider outages (e.g., Cloudflare June 2024) can take your content offline globally. Vendor lock-in & rising costs: Egress fees can become prohibitive at scale, and migration between CDNs is complex. Centralized censorship: The provider can unilaterally remove or restrict access to your content.

Variable performance: Initial fetch latency can be high (seconds) if content isn't cached nearby; no performance SLA. Pinning costs & complexity: Guaranteed availability requires paying for pinning services, adding operational overhead. Immutable content: Updating a file (e.g., fixing a typo) requires publishing a new CID and updating all references.