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One advantage of IPFS is its developer ecosystem. They are very focused on providing building blocks to developers, and there is a very active open-source commu

by zapita 8y ago

One advantage of IPFS is its developer ecosystem. They are very focused on providing building blocks to developers, and there is a very active open-source community building on top of it. Contrast this with Bittorrent which is more mature and has more nodes (I think), but is less flexible and not designed for me to build interesting new applications on top of it. It's definitely possible to hack cool things on top of Bittorrent, but you'll spend more time navigating arcane documentations and deserted web discussion forums... The difference in community momentum is palpable.

zzzcpan 8y ago
I disagree with that. Implementing Bittorrent is relatively straightforward, it has specs and a bunch of independent implementations exist. While IPFS is mostly a single code project with obscure docs and push to use that code, rather than making your own implementation.
- diggan 8y ago
  Hm, last time I counted, there are three implementations of libp2p (networking stack from IPFS) in Golang, JavaScript and Rust. Multiformats are also implemented in 5+ languages. The official core implementations are two right now (JS + GO) but there are probably more around, but I personally haven't seen them. Well, one C or C++ as well but cannot find the link for that one right now. But I agree that in general there are not as many implementations and/or specifications as with BitTorrent.
  - zzzcpan 8y ago
    But I don't want to rely on that libp2p or any ipfs code for that matter.
- zapita 8y ago
  Yes, it is well documented and you can easily find examples. But for atypical use cases you won't find a very lively community to discuss with (and with Bittorrent, there is not a lot of variety in use cases). There's just less activity around building new things. At least that's been my experience.
- imhoguy 8y ago
  I agree with you regarding technical aspect, however the drawback of BitTorrent is widespread stigma related to piracy. That results in a lot of ISPs blocking the protocol. IPFS is a new fresh brand not (yet) besmirched with piracy, however technically can serve it the same way.

by zapita 8y ago

zzzcpan 8y ago

I disagree with that. Implementing Bittorrent is relatively straightforward, it has specs and a bunch of independent implementations exist. While IPFS is mostly a single code project with obscure docs and push to use that code, rather than making your own implementation.

diggan 8y ago
Hm, last time I counted, there are three implementations of libp2p (networking stack from IPFS) in Golang, JavaScript and Rust. Multiformats are also implemented in 5+ languages. The official core implementations are two right now (JS + GO) but there are probably more around, but I personally haven't seen them. Well, one C or C++ as well but cannot find the link for that one right now. But I agree that in general there are not as many implementations and/or specifications as with BitTorrent.
- zzzcpan 8y ago
  But I don't want to rely on that libp2p or any ipfs code for that matter.
zapita 8y ago
Yes, it is well documented and you can easily find examples. But for atypical use cases you won't find a very lively community to discuss with (and with Bittorrent, there is not a lot of variety in use cases). There's just less activity around building new things. At least that's been my experience.
imhoguy 8y ago
I agree with you regarding technical aspect, however the drawback of BitTorrent is widespread stigma related to piracy. That results in a lot of ISPs blocking the protocol. IPFS is a new fresh brand not (yet) besmirched with piracy, however technically can serve it the same way.