5 ms·

How does that compare with AWS? Is IPFS worth using for a CDN? (apologies for the acronyms...)

by gitgud 8y ago

neiman 8y ago
AWS and IPFS are so different that you can't compare then. I'd say that the right comparison of IPFS is to BitTorrent.
- jononor 8y ago
  If I am supposed to host my website on it, I want to know how much it would cost (for a given service level). Don't really care if the tech is more like butterflies or turtles...
  - blotter_paper 8y ago
    IPFS nodes generally cache data that has been accessed recently, so if your website is the most accessed content on IPFS you can host it for free just by sharing it once and users will have relatively quick access to it because nodes directly connected to them will probably have a cached copy already. If requests are rare, expect to host it yourself or pay a pinning service, and expect higher latency as users will be requesting content hosted multiple hops away. You should care whether the tech is butterflies or turtles, because you can't compare butterflies and turtles -- or you can, but the comparison breaks down when you ask which will get to an undefined point x quicker. If x is in the air, butterflies; if x is in the water, turtles.
- icebraining 8y ago
  AWS S3 has bittorrent support...
agentofuser 8y ago
If you pin to IPFS and then use a public http gateway like https://cloudflare-ipfs.com https://cloudflare-ipfs.com, which caches and distributes via their CDN, you'll have a good CDN alternative. If you just use IPFS directly with a non-CDN'd, non-cached http gateway, the latency will probably be prohibitive for regular web stuff.
- gitgud 8y ago
  But isn't it like a torrent? where if more people are viewing the item, it can be served faster from more places, like torrent seeders?
  - agentofuser 8y ago
    Yes, definitely. I mean, you certainly get better bandwidth and latency depending on popularity and geographic diversity of seeders, and there are even youtube-alternative websites that host videos on IPFS. But for something like browsing from one page to the next, where the payload is small and you want <200ms latency, I think just the DHT lookup might already put you above that budget. I'm guessing though, haven't made any measurements.
    - mtgx 8y ago
      Who gets <200ms latency anymore when Google analytics and FB pixel tracking scripts take more than that each and most websites have them?
      - icebraining 8y ago
        Those scripts are loaded asynchronously; you can start seeing content before they are ready.
    - geoah 8y ago
      In torrent when you download something you also announce yourself as a seeder. In ipfs afaik you have to explicitly pin something in order for your peer to be announced as a provider. This means that even if your content in ipfs is popular it won’t be fast.
      - progval 8y ago
        No, everyone with the item is a seeder in ipfs. Pinning means the node won't delete it.
- 8y ago

How does that compare with AWS? Is IPFS worth using for a CDN? (apologies for the acronyms...)

by gitgud 8y ago

How does that compare with AWS? Is IPFS worth using for a CDN? (apologies for the acronyms...)

neiman 8y ago

AWS and IPFS are so different that you can't compare then. I'd say that the right comparison of IPFS is to BitTorrent.

jononor 8y ago
If I am supposed to host my website on it, I want to know how much it would cost (for a given service level). Don't really care if the tech is more like butterflies or turtles...
- blotter_paper 8y ago
  IPFS nodes generally cache data that has been accessed recently, so if your website is the most accessed content on IPFS you can host it for free just by sharing it once and users will have relatively quick access to it because nodes directly connected to them will probably have a cached copy already. If requests are rare, expect to host it yourself or pay a pinning service, and expect higher latency as users will be requesting content hosted multiple hops away. You should care whether the tech is butterflies or turtles, because you can't compare butterflies and turtles -- or you can, but the comparison breaks down when you ask which will get to an undefined point x quicker. If x is in the air, butterflies; if x is in the water, turtles.
icebraining 8y ago
AWS S3 has bittorrent support...

agentofuser 8y ago

If you pin to IPFS and then use a public http gateway like https://cloudflare-ipfs.com https://cloudflare-ipfs.com, which caches and distributes via their CDN, you'll have a good CDN alternative. If you just use IPFS directly with a non-CDN'd, non-cached http gateway, the latency will probably be prohibitive for regular web stuff.

gitgud 8y ago
But isn't it like a torrent? where if more people are viewing the item, it can be served faster from more places, like torrent seeders?
- agentofuser 8y ago
  Yes, definitely. I mean, you certainly get better bandwidth and latency depending on popularity and geographic diversity of seeders, and there are even youtube-alternative websites that host videos on IPFS. But for something like browsing from one page to the next, where the payload is small and you want <200ms latency, I think just the DHT lookup might already put you above that budget. I'm guessing though, haven't made any measurements.
  - mtgx 8y ago
    Who gets <200ms latency anymore when Google analytics and FB pixel tracking scripts take more than that each and most websites have them?
    - icebraining 8y ago
      Those scripts are loaded asynchronously; you can start seeing content before they are ready.
  - geoah 8y ago
    In torrent when you download something you also announce yourself as a seeder. In ipfs afaik you have to explicitly pin something in order for your peer to be announced as a provider. This means that even if your content in ipfs is popular it won’t be fast.
    - progval 8y ago
      No, everyone with the item is a seeder in ipfs. Pinning means the node won't delete it.
8y ago