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What is an IPFS gateway?

Legacy: This page documents Filebase's IPFS tier. For new deployments, use the S3-compatible object storage tier with the s3.filebase.io endpoint.

An IPFS gateway is an HTTP server that fetches IPFS content on behalf of clients that only speak HTTP — browsers, curl, image viewers, video players, anything that can't natively follow ipfs:// URLs.

A gateway URL has the form:

https://<gateway-host>/ipfs/{CID}

or, for subdomain gateways (CID v1 only):

https://{cid}.ipfs.<gateway-host>

Filebase public gateway​

Filebase operates a public IPFS gateway:

https://ipfs.filebase.io/ipfs/{CID}

The public gateway is intended for testing and light usage. It has a request rate limit of 200 requests per minute per IP address. For production traffic, use a dedicated gateway.

Dedicated gateways​

A dedicated gateway is a private gateway you provision under your account. Benefits over the public gateway:

  • No rate limit.
  • Higher performance — peered directly with Filebase's IPFS nodes.
  • Configurable scope — restrict the gateway to specific CIDs or to your own pinned content.
  • Custom domain support.

See managing dedicated gateways.

Public, private, and subdomain modes​

Gateways come in several modes:

  • Public path — https://gateway.com/ipfs/{CID} serves any pinned content.
  • Subdomain — https://{cid}.ipfs.gateway.com/ provides per-CID origin isolation. Best for serving websites, since each CID gets its own browser security context.
  • Private — only serves content that's pinned to your account.

What's next​