Freenet Manual

This guide provides comprehensive documentation on Freenet’s components, architecture, and usage. Use the table of contents below to navigate through the manual.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Components
3. Architecture
4. Developer Guide
5. Client SDKs
6. Examples
7. Community and Support
8. Reference
9. Further reading

Introduction

Learn the basics of Freenet and its purpose.

• Introduction

Components

Explore the key components of Freenet:

• Overview: A high-level overview of Freenet’s components.
• Contracts: Details about contracts in Freenet.
• Delegates: Explanation of delegates and their roles.
• User Interfaces: Information on available user interfaces.

Architecture

Understand Freenet’s architecture and how it works:

• P2P Network: Explore the peer-to-peer network structure.
• Intelligent Routing: Understand Freenet’s intelligent routing mechanisms.
• Transport: Learn about the transport layer in Freenet.

Developer Guide

Resources for building on Freenet:

• Publish a Website: Host a static website on Freenet – no coding required.
• Remote Access to a Node: Safely reach your local node’s API from another device (SSH tunnel, Tailscale).
• Tutorial: Create an App: Step-by-step guide to creating a decentralized app.
• Contract Interfaces: The Rust contract-authoring API (ContractInterface). Full API on docs.rs.
• Manifest Format: Details about the freenet.toml configuration format.

Client SDKs

Libraries for connecting a user interface to a Freenet node over WebSocket:

• TypeScript SDK: The browser/Node.js client – @freenetorg/freenet-stdlib. Recommended for most UIs.
• Rust client (Dioxus): use freenet-stdlib with the net feature; see docs.rs and River for the reference implementation.

Examples

• Example Apps: Canonical apps to learn from – freenet-ping (minimal Rust), Raven (TypeScript + Vite), and River (Dioxus).
• Antiflood Tokens
• Blind Trust Tokens

Community and Support

Get involved with the Freenet community:

• Community

Reference

Additional resources and glossary:

• Glossary

Further reading

Deep-dive articles on the design principles behind Freenet’s architecture:

• Understanding Small World Networks: the routing intuition behind the P2P network. How Freenet finds destinations in just a few hops without a central index.
• Understanding Freenet’s Delta-Sync: how shared state stays consistent across the network using mergeable, additive updates rather than full snapshots.

See Further reading for the full collection.