IPFS is a peer-to-peer protocol for storing and sharing files. HTTP is location-addressed. You ask a URL. That URL points at a server. If the server dies, the file is gone. IPFS is content-addressed. A file is named by its hash. You ask the network for that hash. Any peer that has the bytes can serve them.
Files last as long as at least one peer keeps them. Peers share bandwidth. Change the file and the hash changes, so old versions stay reachable if someone still hosts them. NFT metadata often lives here: the token points at a JSON file on IPFS, spread across peers, not one company's disk. A site on IPFS has no single host to take down.
The tradeoff is finding things. HTTP gives you URLs. IPFS gives you hashes. Discovery has to live outside the protocol: a name system, a search index, a pin list. IPFS is a real alternative to centralized hosting when you care about permanence and that no one office can pull the file. Convenience is not the goal. Availability without a single server is.
Pinning is how you keep a file alive. If nobody pins it, the hash still names it, but the bytes can vanish. Pay a pinning service or run a node if the file matters. IPFS addresses files by content hash, not by server name. If the bits match the hash, you have the right file.
IPFS vs HTTP File Sharing
Compare location-based HTTP with content-addressed IPFS protocols
Request by URL
document.pdf
image.jpg
video.mp4
data.json
HTTP requests files by location (URL). If the server goes down, files become inaccessible. Try simulating server failure!