Compared honestly
Octopin vs Pinata
The mainstream IPFS pinning service since 2018.
Verdict
Pick Pinata if your team is enterprise-grade and needs 1 TB+ storage on a single plan. Pick Octopin if you're an NFT project that wants honest pricing, unlimited bandwidth from $5/mo, and a free tier to start.
Side-by-side
| Feature | Octopin | Pinata |
|---|---|---|
| Free storage | 1 GB | 1 GB |
| Free bandwidth | Fair use | 10 GB |
| Free file count | 500 | 500 |
| Entry paid plan | $5/mo (25 GB) | $20/mo (1 TB) |
| Bandwidth overage fee | None, unlimited on paid plans | $0.10/GB |
| Subdomain gateway (`<CID>.ipfs.your-domain`) | Coming soon | Paid feature only |
| Public IPFS network announce | Yes (IPNI HTTP provider on cid.contact) | Yes (IPNI on cid.contact) |
| Trustless retrieval (raw, CAR) | Yes | Yes |
| NFT-community focus | Yes | General-purpose |
When to pick Pinata
Pinata is the safe enterprise default — well-funded, mature SDK, 5 TB single-plan ceiling, dedicated support. If you're a Fortune-500-adjacent team with procurement on speed dial, they're the answer.
- • Higher raw storage ceiling at top tier (5 TB vs our 3 TB).
- • Mature SDK with framework adapters and CLI.
- • Dedicated gateway feature with hostname customization (paid).
- • Long track record — running since 2018.
Where we differ
- • Unlimited bandwidth on every paid plan, from $5/mo: no overage shock.
- • Entry plan starts at $5/mo (Pinata's smallest paid plan is $20/mo).
- • Trustless retrieval (raw + CAR) on every tier — same protocol as Pinata's paid 'Dedicated Gateway'.
- • Built specifically for NFT projects and small communities.
- • Open about our cost structure — built on Cloudflare R2 + free egress.
How to switch from Pinata to Octopin
- Create a free Octopin account with Google sign-in. No wallet, no card for the free plan.
- List the CIDs you have pinned on Pinata. If you still have the original files, upload them to Octopin: the same bytes always produce the same CID.
- On a paid plan you can skip the re-upload and import content directly by CID, or upload a CAR export of your data.
- Check a few CIDs on gateway.octopin.app and a public gateway like ipfs.io. If your contract uses
ipfs://URIs, nothing on-chain changes. - Keep the old pins until everything resolves from Octopin, then remove them from Pinata.
Moving a whole collection? Read the IPFS migration playbook and why contracts should use ipfs:// URIs, not gateway URLs.
FAQ
Will my contract's `tokenURI` still work if I use Octopin?
Yes. Octopin publishes your CIDs to the public IPNI indexer (cid.contact) as an HTTP gateway provider — the same channel Pinata, web3.storage, and Filecoin Pin all use. Marketplaces (OpenSea, Magic Eden) and wallets resolve `ipfs://CID/...` URIs through their own gateway pools, which consult the indexer to find providers like us.
What happens if my collection goes viral?
Nothing changes financially. Bandwidth is unlimited on every paid Octopin plan. Pinata charges $0.10/GB after their bandwidth limit — for an active NFT collection serving 1.5 TB/mo that's an extra $150/mo on top of your plan.
More IPFS pinning comparisons
Try Octopin for free
1 GB free. Unlimited bandwidth from $5/mo. No credit card.