The Walrus system is really good at helping with storage. It does a job than the other solutions that are already out there.
The way Walrus improves storage is by making it more efficient. This is a deal because decentralized storage is all about people being able to store and share files without having to rely on a central authority.
Here are some ways that Walrus is better:
* It is more secure than the options
* It is easier to use than the options
* It is faster than the options
The Walrus system is making decentralized storage better. Decentralized storage is what the Walrus system is about. The Walrus system is helping people to store and share files in a way.
The existing solutions for storage are not as good as the Walrus system. The Walrus system is the option for people who want to use decentralized storage. Decentralized storage, with the Walrus system is the future. The Walrus system is making this future happen.
Decentralized storage is really important for Web3. It lets us store data in a way without using big companies like Amazon S3 or Google Cloud. Some protocols like Filecoin, Arweave, Storj and Sia have been working on storing files in a way. Each of these protocols has its way of doing things and its own advantages. But now that Web3 is being used for more than storing files like, for real-time apps, artificial intelligence data and special kinds of tokens called NFTs and smart contracts that can be programmed we are seeing some problems. Decentralized storage has some limitations when it comes to cost, performance and how easy it is to use. Decentralized storage is still a part of Web3 and we need to make it better. Walrus (built on the Sui blockchain) aims to address these challenges with novel architectural and economic innovations, offering a fundamentally improved decentralized storage solution for the next generation of blockchain applications.
📌 1. Low Storage Cost Through Efficient Encoding
Traditional Replication vs. Erasure Coding
Decentralized storage systems usually work in a way. They make copies of the data. This means that multiple complete copies of the data must be stored across nodes to ensure the data is safe and people can get to it when they need to. Decentralized storage systems do this to make sure the data is always available.
Arweave requires the entire network to store data, resulting in very high replication overhead and costs.
Filecoin lets users choose the number of storage providers, but higher redundancy (for safety) still increases costs significantly.
In contrast, Walrus uses advanced erasure coding (often called Red-Stuff encoding). Instead of storing full copies, data is split into many “slivers”. Only a subset of those slivers is needed to reconstruct the original file, achieving high fault tolerance with much lower redundancy — approximately 4–5× instead of 25× or 100×. This dramatically reduces the total amount of data stored and thus lowers storage cost — by 80–100× compared to Filecoin or Arweave in many cases.
This means storing 1 TB of data on Walrus can be orders of magnitude cheaper than on legacy decentralized storage networks.
📌 2. High Performance with Fast Reads and Writes
Traditional decentralized storage networks usually have a problem with slowing things down. They often take a time to do things. This is an issue, with traditional decentralized storage networks.
Filecoin’s storage process can take minutes to tens of minutes for relatively small files.
Arweave’s longer block times can delay confirmable storage.
Walrus is designed for real-time performance, with rapid encoding and retrieval due to its optimized protocols and Sui’s high-throughput architecture. Faster access and distribution of storage slivers across nodes allow for low latency writes and reads, enabling applications like media streaming, interactive dApps, and AI dataset access with performance closer to traditional cloud systems.
📌 3. Strong Reliability and Fault Tolerance
Reliability in storage depends on how well a decentralized storage system can handle failures of the nodes in the decentralized storage system. When the nodes in the decentralized storage system fail the decentralized storage system has to be able to keep working. This is very important for decentralized storage. The nodes in the decentralized storage system are like the building blocks of the decentralized storage system. If the nodes, in the decentralized storage system are not working well the whole decentralized storage system will not work well. Decentralized storage systems need to be able to handle failures of the nodes to be reliable.
Systems with fewer replicas (like low-bid Filecoin deals) risk data loss if redundancy is not enforced.
Full replication networks like Arweave are extremely durable but prohibitively expensive.
Walrus’s erasure coding scheme can tolerate loss of up to two-thirds of fragments and still reconstruct data. This level of tolerance ensures that even with substantial node churn or failures, data remains available and retrievable without massive replication overhead.
📌 4. Programmability Through Blockchain Integration
One thing that really sets Walrus apart is that it works closely with the Sui blockchain. This means that Walrus is a kind of storage that people can program and it is not controlled by one person or company it is decentralized. The Sui blockchain is a part of what makes Walrus special giving it the ability to be programmable decentralized storage.
In Walrus, stored blobs are represented as objects on Sui, meaning smart contracts can interact with, reference, and manage stored data directly.
This opens up use cases like linking NFT metadata directly to on-chain storage, updating or transferring stored files through Move smart contracts, or enabling dynamic data models.
Existing decentralized storage like Arweave and Filecoin typically treat data as static and separate from on-chain logic. While Filecoin’s FVM (Filecoin Virtual Machine) adds some programmability, it is still limited compared to the seamless on-chain data reference possible with Walrus’s Sui integration.
This feature makes storage a lot more useful. It changes storage from a place to hold things to a part of decentralized applications that can be programmed. This means people can have experiences, with Web3. The feature really helps make Web3 experiences richer.
📌 5. Flexible Data Management: Access, Modification, and Deletion
Decentralized storage systems make sure that the information stored on them does not change. They follow a strict rule that what is stored is stored forever and cannot be altered. Decentralized storage systems are very particular about this so the data, on decentralized storage systems remains the same always. This is a feature of decentralized storage systems.
Once data is stored on Arweave, it cannot be altered or deleted.
On systems like Filecoin, data can be removed when a storage contract expires but not at user’s discretion.
Walrus introduces more practical data control, allowing users to delete or modify blob data if needed, while keeping the blockchain’s transactional history immutable. This is particularly important for enterprise use cases, compliance requirements (like GDPR), or sensitive datasets where flexibility is required.
📌 6. Broad Applicability for Modern Web3 Use Cases
The combination of low cost, high performance, programmability, and flexible data control positions Walrus uniquely for modern Web3 expectations:
AI and Large Data Sets
Efficient storage of massive datasets used for decentralized AI training or model storage is now more feasible.
Dynamic NFTs
NFTs can link to storage in a way that the image or asset itself becomes a true on-chain resource, not just referenced off-chain.
Real-Time dApps and Gaming
Interactive applications that require frequent, rapid access to large assets can benefit from Walrus’s performance profile.
Enterprise and Compliance-Sensitive Data
Mutable storage allows businesses to adhere to data protection standards while still being decentralized.
Walrus is not just another decentralized storage protocol — it represents a holistic upgrade over existing solutions by addressing their key limitations. Its cost efficiency, performance, robustness, programmability, and practical data management set it apart. By tightly coupling storage with on-chain logic via the Sui blockchain, Walrus transcends passive file storage and becomes a dynamic infrastructure layer for Web3, enabling tomorrow’s decentralized applications to operate with data that is secure, efficient, and smartly integrated.