Storage networks evaluated across verified cost per TB-year, contractual durability, retrieval cost, and what happens when you stop paying.
Filecoin
#1 of 7 · published ranking
Filecoin
80ChainChoice Score
4199
Why it leads
Best in the pool on durability enforceability (8/10; next 7/10)
Cost
Not priced· No comparable price is published
No provider can pay for a position in this table. The code that computes this order cannot read which links earn us a commission, and every build proves it. Every score below rebuilds from the published criteria.Ranking 2026.08 · 4 criteria · 7 products · same inputs, same order
Personal comparison
Decentralised Storage ranked comparison
No comparable price is published; ranking still uses verified product evidence.
Commission: This provider pays ChainChoice nothing for this link. Disclosure
Crypto products are high risk. Check the provider is authorised where you live before you deposit.
Same score, not joint · ordered by weighted total (39.70 against 39.50)
5
ARArweaveOne-time-fee blockchain storing data vi...
What happens when you stop paying (or they do) — 8/10Trade-off: 'Pay once, store forever' is a 200-year prepayment quoted in AR, and the practical on...
Ranked on 4 published criteria weighted 30/30/20/20, which set goal alignment — 30 of the 86 points. The rest: regional access 20, evidence depth 18, ease of use 10, institutional trust 8. Profile match is shown in breakdowns but carries no weight.
Audit
Infrastructure
Methodology
2026.09.15
published 2026-09-16
Providers tracked
980+
across 119 categories
Last verified
2026-09-14
newest dated pricing or sentiment read
Named on the roster
2 people
managing directors · 6 automated processes
Decision guide
What matters most before choosing in this category
The best storage network depends on how long the data must survive and how often you read it back. Durability carries equal top weight with cost because in this category the headline number and the binding contract routinely disagree — one provider markets eleven nines while its terms of service state in capitals that there is no guarantee anything stored will not be lost. Cost is normalised to what is actually billed rather than what is advertised, since at least one network quotes per gigabyte on encoded size several times larger than your file.
What matters most before choosing in this category
The best storage network depends on how long the data must survive and how often you read it back. Durability carries equal top weight with cost because in this category the headline number and the binding contract routinely disagree — one provider markets eleven nines while its terms of service state in capitals that there is no guarantee anything stored will not be lost. Cost is normalised to what is actually billed rather than what is advertised, since at least one network quotes per gigabyte on encoded size several times larger than your file.
How long must this data survive — a year, a decade, or indefinitely?
How often will you read it back, and have you priced the egress?
What happens to the data if you stop paying, or if the operator does?
Proof-based storage marketplace; Onchain Cloud adds pay-per-epoch warm storage. Strongest on verified cost per tb-year (normalised) (9/10): 2.50 USD/TiB per 30-day month per copy = approx 30 USD/TiB-year for one copy, plus a flat 0.12 USD/data set/month; even at two copies (approx 60 USD/TiB-year) it undercuts Storj's 84 USD/TB-year. Cross-checked against a live commercial Filecoin product: Fil One publishes "$4.99/ TB / month" with "$0" egress and "$0"… Weakest on what happens when you stop paying (or they do) (6/10): Nothing on Filecoin is permanent: FIP-0052 (status: Final) raised the maximum sector commitment from 540 days to 1,278 days (3.5 years), so every dataset needs a named owner responsible for renewal, and pay-per-epoch billing means an empty payment rail drops the data. Offsetting that, the network is not a single… Published price: Filecoin Onchain Cloud storage-costs page: "Storage $2.50/TiB/month per copy - Charged only while pieces exist.
Best forVerified cost per TB-year (normalised) — 9/10
Main tradeoffNothing here is permanent and the billing docs quietly redefine time - 'month' means 30 days (86,400 epochs), not a calendar month, and the maximum sector commitment is 1,278 days, so every dataset needs an owner whose standing job is renewing it.
Verify before signupFilecoin Onchain Cloud storage-costs page (last updated Sep 3, 2026): "Storage | $2.50/TiB/month per copy | Charged only while pieces exist. Empty data sets have no recurring cost." "Proving Service | $0.12/data set/month | Flat per-data-set fee, added on top of the storage rate." "CDN egress | up to $14/TiB (≈ $0.014/GiB) downloaded | Optional, via Filecoin Beam. About half this when served from cache." One-time fees are paid from a refundable ~$0.50 lifecycle reserve: create data set $0.025; add pieces $0.008 + $0.003 per piece; schedule piece removals $0.007 per call. "Month" means 30 days here (86,400 epochs), not a calendar month. "The default 2-copy configuration roughly doubles the recurring cost" because each copy is its own data set. That comes to approx 60 USD/TiB-year of storage plus 2.88 USD/year of proving fees for the two data sets. Billing is in USDFC per ~30-second epoch against a 30-day lockup. Direct storage-provider /piece retrieval carries no egress charge.
Methodology
How this category is reviewed
Reviewed on verified cost per tb-year (normalised), durability: contractual or aspirational, retrieval cost and read path, and what happens when you stop paying (or they do).
The order on this page is the published ranking for this category. Every criterion, weight and source behind it is on the methodology page.
Frequently asked
Questions people ask before choosing storage
Is 'permanent' storage really permanent?
It rests on a stated assumption, and the good ones publish it. A pay-once endowment is only as durable as the storage-cost decline it is priced against, so what is scored is whether that assumption is disclosed and falsifiable — not whether the word 'forever' appears.
Does a durability figure mean anything?
Only if it appears in the contract. Marketing durability claims here frequently have no counterpart in the terms of service, which is why the criterion is written as contractual versus aspirational.
Is IPFS pinning the same as storage?
No. Pinning keeps data available while someone pays to pin it; unpinned data disappears. That is a different product from a network with a stated durability commitment.
Not financial advice · For informational purposes only · Always do your own research
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