Difference between solid and ipfs

Question

Tim Berners-Lee recently announced Solid. How much is this different from ipfs and will it be possible to use them together?

Answer 1

The technical spec makes it sound as though it does not compete with IPFS, since everything seems to be done in the usual single-server-over-HTTP regime, which makes me think that it should be able to be used on top of IPFS instead with minimal pain. Really the decentralized part seems to be the access to the data, not the storage of the data itself, which is a key value-add for IPFS.

One unfortunate thing is that they have come up with their own version of IPLD called Linked Data, so I'm not sure how that would interface with IPFS's content addressing solution.

I expect the first place more answers will show up is this forum thread.

Answer 2

Solid and IPFS are compatible but have different trade offs.

Both systems are driven by URIs, and typically Solid will use http style URIs, but is it not limited to them. IPFS will use ipfs type URIs, which play nicely with linked data.

The advantage of ipfs URIs is that they are content addressable and therefore can be long lived, mirrored and findable on a P2P network without the need for DNS. The advantage of http URIs is that they have a large network effect, lots of tooling, and most devices are able to interact with them without extra installation.

Both teams collaborate in a friendly way and even share developers. Hopefully as IPFS grows in popularity both systems can offer more choice to end users as a way to store data. Solid apps will be able to benefit from both types of data, and even mix them together.