docs.waku.org/docs/overview/reference/waku-vs-libp2p.md
2023-05-14 21:34:45 +01:00

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Waku vs libp2p - What's the difference?

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.

Waku as a Service Network

Waku offers incentivization mechanisms to run nodes, whereas libp2p does not. Additionally, a user or a developer does not have to deploy own infra as a prerequisite to use Waku, it is a service network.

However, it is encouraged to run your own node to support and decentralize the network.

Waku as a Keyturn Solution

Waku includes a number of protocol covering the following domains like privacy preservation, censorship resistance, portability/runs anywhere.

libp2p does not provide out of the box protocols to enable mostly offline/resource restricted devices, WAKU-STORE/WAKU-LIGHTPUSH/WAKU-FILTER caters to those use cases.

Economic Spam Protection

libp2p does not have strong spam protection guarantees, RLN (Rate Limit Nullifier) is a protocol being developed by the Waku team towards this goal.