LogoSHARD
v2.4.1
Install CLI →
Live Cost Calculator

How much is AWS
costing you?

Drag to your storage size. Watch the numbers. Shard stores fragments across 8,400+ nodes with zero egress fees.

Storage Volume10 GB
1 GB100 TB
Shard
Monthly
$0.01
Annual
$0.18
Egress: FREE
AWS S3
Monthly
$0.50
Annual
$6.00
Egress: $0.09/GB
Filecoin
Monthly
$0.06
Annual
$0.72
Egress: $0.0022/GB

Annual savings vs AWS S3

$5.82 saved

Includes storage + estimated 30% egress traffic

Start Free — 50 GBSee Full Comparison →
Live Network Status
Updated: 30s ago
0
Nodes Online
live
0.0 PB
Data Stored
live
0.00%
Uptime SLA
0
Countries
0ms
Avg Latency
0.0M
Files Stored
live
Technical Comparison

Every row is an objection
answered.

Scroll right to compare. Shard wins on every metric that matters for production infrastructure.

Feature
SHARD
AWS S3FilecoinIPFS
Encryption Standard
Security
AES-256-GCM + ChaCha20
Client-side, zero-knowledge
AES-256 (server-side)
None (client optional)
None
Fragment Redundancy
Reliability
12-of-20 erasure coding
Survives 8 node failures
3× replication (same region)
1–3 deals manual
Pinning only
Retrieval Latency
Performance
< 80ms p99
Edge cache layer
< 100ms p99
2–48h (unsealing)
Variable (DHT lookup)
Egress Fees
Cost
$0.000 / GB
Always free
$0.09 / GB
$0.0022 / GB
Gateway dependent
Uptime SLA
Reliability
99.97% guaranteed
No single point of failure
99.99% (contractual)
No SLA
No SLA
Censorship Resistance
Sovereignty
Fully decentralized
No jurisdiction, no takedowns
Jurisdiction-bound
Partial
Partial (gateways)
Storage Pricing
Cost
$0.0015 / GB·mo
15× cheaper than S3
$0.023 / GB·mo
$0.0058 / GB·mo
Pinning service varies
SDK / API
Developer Experience
REST + gRPC + CLI
npm, Go, Rust, Python
REST + SDK (AWS-only)
Lotus API (complex)
HTTP API (limited)
Zero-Knowledge Proof
Security
PoSt verification
Cryptographic storage proof
None
PoRep + PoSt
None

9 out of 9 categories. No tradeoffs.

Independently verified · Last updated Feb 2026

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Technical Deep Dive

The protocol, layer by layer.

Not marketing copy. Actual implementation details for engineers who need to know how this works before trusting it with production data.

Zero-Knowledge Architecture

Files are encrypted client-side before a single byte leaves your machine. Shard nodes never see plaintext. Ever.

  • AES-256-GCM for symmetric encryption
  • ChaCha20-Poly1305 for stream ciphers
  • X25519 Diffie-Hellman key exchange
  • Client-side key derivation (PBKDF2 / Argon2id)
  • Zero server-side key custody
Read protocol spec →
example.ts
1224,229,236,0.5)">"color:rgba(57,255,20,0.35)">// Shard encryption pipeline
2224,229,236,0.5)">"color:#B266FF">import { ShardClient } 224,229,236,0.5)">"color:#B266FF">from 224,229,236,0.5)">'shard-sdk';
3
4224,229,236,0.5)">"color:#B266FF">const client = 224,229,236,0.5)">"color:#B266FF">new ShardClient({
5  keyDerivation: 224,229,236,0.5)">'argon2id',
6  cipher: 224,229,236,0.5)">'aes-256-gcm',
7  224,229,236,0.5)">"color:rgba(57,255,20,0.35)">// Key never leaves client
8});
9
10224,229,236,0.5)">"color:rgba(57,255,20,0.35)">// Encrypt + fragment before upload
11224,229,236,0.5)">"color:#B266FF">const { cid, fragments } = 224,229,236,0.5)">"color:#B266FF">await client.store(file, {
12  redundancy: 224,229,236,0.5)">'12-of-20',  224,229,236,0.5)">"color:rgba(57,255,20,0.35)">// Erasure coding
13  encrypt: true,           224,229,236,0.5)">"color:rgba(57,255,20,0.35)">// Always client-side
14  shards: 20,              224,229,236,0.5)">"color:rgba(57,255,20,0.35)">// Distributed across 20 nodes
15});
16
17console.log(224,229,236,0.5)">`Stored: ${cid}`);
18224,229,236,0.5)">"color:rgba(57,255,20,0.35)">// → cid: bafybeig3q7...
19224,229,236,0.5)">"color:rgba(57,255,20,0.35)">// → fragments: 20 nodes, 8 failures tolerated
Get Started

One command.
Infinite storage.

50 GB free forever. No credit card. No AWS account. No vendor lock-in.

macOS / Node
# Requires Node 18+
$npm install -g shard-cli_
After install
# Authenticate with your Shard account
shard auth login

# Upload your first file
shard store ./myfile.pdf

# ✓ Encrypted + fragmented across 20 nodes
# → cid: bafybeig3q7xmv2d...
Install the CLIDownload Desktop App →
◈50 GB free
◈No credit card
◈Open source
◈MIT license