Skiff Integrates IPFS to Bring Decentralization and Encryption to Consumers

Skiff’s integration of IPFS means documents and files can be stored and shared with security, persistence, and privacy.

Today, Skiff (opens new window)has announced its integration of the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) to add a secure, persistent, and decentralized storage layer to its collaboration product.

Skiff is now open to the public! Learn more below, or jump right in at

#Catching up with Skiff
Skiff is a private, decentralized, and end-to-end encrypted workspace for the modern web. Today, most collaboration platforms rely on centralized servers, which moderate document state, collaborative changes, and content sharing through Operational Transforms [OT].

These OT solutions, though swift and efficient, suffer from the shortcomings of centralization. Most notably, lack of privacy. In order to manage document state, OTs must also, by necessity, have access to all the information created within the document itself.

Skiff solves the tension between collaboration and privacy by offering a solution: a decentralized, open-source collaboration and document management software that is fully end-to-end encrypted to preserve privacy. Skiff’s product uses a “conflict-free replicated data type” (CRDT), which allows multiple independent parties to maintain, update, and merge documents. CRDTs are not a new concept for the world of collaboration technology, but only recently have reached the throughput and efficiency needed to enable a consumer-facing application that can mimic the efficiency of OTs without the drawbacks of centralized privacy.

#Skiff x IPFS
Skiff and Protocol Labs are collaborating to fully integrate IPFS and decentralized storage into Skiff. The result will be a collaboration management application in which users can store files, images, content, PDFs, and more all through IPFS.

Skiff’s integration of IPFS retains the end-to-end encryption that Skiff users expect as a cornerstone of the system. Skiff and IPFS will continue to collaborate to roll out the capabilities of document management within the decentralized storage ecosystem.