IPFS Gateways

The bridge between the traditional web and the IPFS network.

What is a gateway?

An IPFS gateway is an HTTP server that translates standard web requests into IPFS protocol requests. It lets browsers, apps, and scripts access IPFS content without running an IPFS node — just use a regular URL.

https://ipfs.ninja/ipfs/<CID>

When you request this URL, the gateway fetches the content from the IPFS network (or its cache), and returns it as a standard HTTP response.

Public vs. dedicated gateways

Feature	Public gateway	Dedicated gateway
URL	ipfs.ninja/ipfs/...	<slug>.gw.ipfs.ninja/ipfs/...
Serves	Any CID from the network	Only your pinned CIDs
Authentication	None	Optional (token, IP whitelist)
Plan	All plans	All plans (limits vary)

How gateways resolve content

1. You request ipfs.ninja/ipfs/QmXk7...
2. The gateway checks its local cache — if the file is cached, it's returned immediately
3. If not cached, the gateway queries the IPFS DHT to find nodes that have the CID
4. The gateway downloads the file from the nearest available node
5. The file is cached locally and returned to you as an HTTP response

Other public gateways

Since IPFS is a public network, your files are accessible through any IPFS gateway — not just ours. Popular public gateways include:

• dweb.link/ipfs/<CID> — Protocol Labs
• w3s.link/ipfs/<CID> — Storacha (Web3.Storage)
• cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/<CID> — Cloudflare