<titledata-rh="true">Comparing Waku and libp2p | Waku Documentation</title><metadata-rh="true"name="viewport"content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1"><metadata-rh="true"name="twitter:card"content="summary_large_image"><metadata-rh="true"property="og:url"content="https://docs.waku.org/learn/waku-vs-libp2p"><metadata-rh="true"property="og:locale"content="en_GB"><metadata-rh="true"name="docusaurus_locale"content="en-GB"><metadata-rh="true"name="docsearch:language"content="en-GB"><metadata-rh="true"name="keywords"content="waku, web3"><metadata-rh="true"name="image"content="https://docs.waku.org/_og/e8943f89adc3a0065c0deb9c9c3cfd95545e86d7.png"><metadata-rh="true"name="docusaurus_version"content="current"><metadata-rh="true"name="docusaurus_tag"content="docs-default-current"><metadata-rh="true"name="docsearch:version"content="current"><metadata-rh="true"name="docsearch:docusaurus_tag"content="docs-default-current"><metadata-rh="true"property="og:title"content="Comparing Waku and libp2p | Waku Documentation"><metadata-rh="true"name="description"content="Since Waku is built on top of libp2p, they share a lot of concepts and terminologies between them. However, there are key differences between them that are worth noting."><metadata-rh="true"property="og:description"content="Since Waku is built on top of libp2p, they share a lot of concepts and terminologies between them. However, there are key differences between them that are worth noting."><linkdata-rh="true"rel="icon"href="/theme/image/favicon.ico"><linkdata-rh="true"rel="canonical"href="https://docs.waku.org/learn/waku-vs-libp2p"><linkdata-rh="true"rel="alternate"href="https://docs.waku.org/learn/waku-vs-libp2p"hreflang="en-GB"><linkdata-rh="true"rel="alternate"href="https://docs.waku.org/learn/waku-vs-libp2p"hreflang="x-default"><linkrel="alternate icon"type="image/png"href="/theme/image/favicon.png">
<h2class="anchor anchorWithHideOnScrollNavbar_WYt5"id="waku-as-a-service-network">Waku as a service network<ahref="#waku-as-a-service-network"class="hash-link"aria-label="Direct link to Waku as a service network"title="Direct link to Waku as a service network"></a></h2>
<p>Waku intends to incentivise mechanisms to run nodes, but it is not part of libp2p's scope. Additionally, users or developers do not have to deploy their infrastructure as a prerequisite to use Waku. It is a service network. However, you are encouraged to <ahref="/#run-a-waku-node">run a node</a> to support and decentralise the network.</p>
<h2class="anchor anchorWithHideOnScrollNavbar_WYt5"id="waku-as-a-turnkey-solution">Waku as a turnkey solution<ahref="#waku-as-a-turnkey-solution"class="hash-link"aria-label="Direct link to Waku as a turnkey solution"title="Direct link to Waku as a turnkey solution"></a></h2>
<p>Waku includes various protocols covering the following domains: privacy preservation, censorship resistance, and platform agnosticism, allowing it to run on any platform or environment.</p>
<p>Waku provides out-of-the-box protocols to enable mostly offline/resource-limited devices, <ahref="/learn/concepts/protocols#store">Store</a>/<ahref="/learn/concepts/protocols#light-push">Light Push</a>/<ahref="/learn/concepts/protocols#filter">Filter</a> caters to those use cases.</p>
<h2class="anchor anchorWithHideOnScrollNavbar_WYt5"id="economic-spam-protection">Economic spam protection<ahref="#economic-spam-protection"class="hash-link"aria-label="Direct link to Economic spam protection"title="Direct link to Economic spam protection"></a></h2>
<p>libp2p does not have strong spam protection guarantees, <ahref="/learn/concepts/protocols#rln-relay">RLN Relay</a> is a protocol being developed by the Waku team towards this goal.</p></div><footerclass="theme-doc-footer docusaurus-mt-lg"><divclass="row margin-top--sm theme-doc-footer-edit-meta-row"><divclass="col"><ahref="https://github.com/waku-org/docs.waku.org/tree/develop/docs/learn/waku-vs-libp2p.md"target="_blank"rel="noreferrer noopener"class="theme-edit-this-page"><divclass="icon_S7Kx m_thRi"><svgxmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"width="16"height="16"fill="none"viewBox="0 0 16 16"><pathfill="#fff"fill-rule="evenodd"d="m12.707 2.393.9.9c.526.52.526 1.367 0 1.887L4.787 14H2v-2.787l6.933-6.94 1.887-1.88c.52-.52 1.367-.52 1.887 0M3.333 12.667l.94.04 6.547-6.554-.94-.94-6.547 6.547z"clip-rule="evenodd"></path></svg></div><spanclass="lsd-typography lsd-typography--body2">Edit this page</span></a></div><divclass="col lastUpdated_JAkA"></div></div></footer></article><navclass="docusaurus-mt-lg pagination-nav"aria-label="Docs pages"><aclass="pagination-nav__link pagination-nav__link--prev"href="/learn/research"><divclass="icon_S7Kx m_thRi"><svgxmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"width="14"height="14"fill="none"viewBox="0 0 14 14"><pathfill="#fff"d="M11.667 6.417h-7.1L7.83 3.156 7 2.333 2.334 7 7 11.667l.823-.823-3.255-3.26h7.099z"></path></svg></div><spanclass="lsd-typography lsd-typography--body2 pagination-nav__label">Research</span></a><aclass="pagination-nav__link pagination-nav__link--next"href="/learn/glossary"><spanclass="lsd-typography lsd-typography--body2 pagination-nav__label">Glossary</span><divclass="icon_S7Kx m_thRi"><svgxmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"width="14"height="14"fill="none"viewBox="0 0 14 14"><pathfill="#fff"d="m7 2.334-.823.822 3.255 3.26H2.333v1.167h7.1l-3.256 3.261.823.823L11.667 7z"></path></svg></div></a></nav></div></div><divclass="gap1_XuuQ"></div></div></div></main></div></div></div><footerclass="footer"><divclass="container container-fluid firstRow_ar1q"><divclass="footer__bottom text--center"><divclass="margin-bottom--sm"><aclass="footerLogoLink_BH7S"href="/"><imgsrc="/theme/image/logo.svg"alt="Waku"class="themedImage_kfRS themedImage--light_BL8e footer__logo"width="22"><imgsrc="/theme/image/logo.svg"alt="Waku"class="themedImage_kfRS themedImage--dark_OvIx footer__logo"width="22"></a></div><divclass="footer__copyright">Waku</div></div><divclass="row footer__links"><divclass="theme-layout-footer-column col footer__col"><divclass="footer__title">Guides</div><ulclass="footer__items clean-list"><liclass="footer__item"><aclass="footer__link-item"href="/guides/nwaku/run-docker-compose">Run a Nwaku Node</a></li><liclass="footer__item"><aclass="footer__link-item"href="/guides/js-waku/">JavaScript Waku SDK</a></li></ul></div><divclass="theme-layout-footer-column col footer__col"><divclass="footer__title">Community</div><ulclass="footer__items clean-list"><liclass="footer__item"><ahref="https://twitter.com/waku_org/"target="_blank"rel="noopener noreferrer"class="footer__link-item">X<svgwidth="13.5"height="13.5"aria-hidden="true"class="iconExternalLink_nPIU"><usehref="#theme-svg-external-link"></use></svg></a></li><liclass="footer__item"><ahref="https://discord.waku.org/"target="_blank"rel="noopener noreferrer"class="footer__link-item">Discord<svgwidth="13.5"height="13.5"aria-hidden="true"class="iconExternalLink_nPIU"><usehref="#theme-svg-external-link"></use></svg></a></li><liclass="footer__item"><ahref="https://github.com/waku-org/"target="_blank"rel="noopener noreferrer"class="footer__link-item">GitHub<svgwidth="13.5"height="13.5"aria-hidden="true"class="iconExternalLink_nPIU"><usehref="#theme-svg-external-link"></use></svg></a></li><liclass="footer__item"><ahref="https://www.youtube.com/@wakuorg"target="_blank"rel="noopener noreferrer"class="footer__link-item">YouTube<svgwidth="13.5"height="13.5"aria-hidden="true"class="iconExternalLink_nPIU"><usehref="#theme-svg-external-link">