Welcome to SCP2P (Subscribed Catalog P2P) — a decentralized, cryptographically-secure communication and data sharing protocol designed for the modern web.
SCP2P is built on a simple yet powerful idea: you should own your data and your discovery. Unlike traditional platforms that rely on central servers or global uncurated search, SCP2P empowers individuals and communities to build their own private or public networks of trust.
SCP2P is a peer-to-peer (P2P) software suite and protocol that allows users to publish, discover, and share "Catalogs" (Manifests) of content without a middleman.
At its core, SCP2P is:
- Subscription-Centric: You only see and search what you choose to follow. No global noise, just curated signal.
- Fully Decentralized: No central servers, no "cloud" ownership. Data moves directly between peers.
- Cryptographically Secure: Every share is signed by its publisher, and every byte of data is verified for integrity using modern primitives (Ed25519, BLAKE3).
- NAT-Friendly: Designed to work across home routers and mobile networks using QUIC and intelligent relaying.
- Zero Configuration: Features built-in LAN discovery (mDNS) so you can start sharing with devices on your local network instantly.
- Offline-First: Search and discovery work even without an internet connection, as long as you have local peers.
| Feature | Centralized (Social/Cloud) | Traditional P2P (BitTorrent) | SCP2P |
|---|---|---|---|
| Privacy | Low (Data mined/monitored) | Medium (Public IP exposure) | High (Encrypted, scoped search) |
| Censorship | Easy (Central kill-switch) | Hard | Impossible (No central authority) |
| Search | Algorithmic/Ad-driven | Global/Uncurated | Subscribed/Curated |
| Integrity | Trusted Service | Variable | Cryptographically Guaranteed |
| Ownership | Platform-owned | Shared Swarm | Self-Signed Sovereignty |
| Community | Platform-locked | Fragmented | Built-in Communities |
SCP2P simplifies complex P2P technology into a straightforward lifecycle:
- Create a Share: You bundle files or text into a "Share" on your device. This creates a cryptographically signed Manifest (a catalog). You control the visibility: make it Public for anyone to find, or Private so only those with the ID can subscribe.
- Publish to the DHT: Your node announces a small "pointer" to the Decentralized Hash Table (DHT). This distributed ledger tells the network that a new version of your share exists without revealing its content.
- Onboarding & Discovery: Others join your circle via a simple Invite Link or find you via LAN Discovery and Communities. If you are behind a firewall, Relays (standard nodes with extra capacity) help bridge the connection without ever seeing your unencrypted data.
- Local Search: Once subscribed, your peers' catalogs are indexed locally on your device. When you search, you are searching your own curated world—not a global, spam-filled index.
- Swarm Download: When someone wants a file, they download "chunks" from you and any other peers who already have it. This makes the network faster as more people join (Swarming).
SCP2P is designed for everyone who values digital sovereignty:
- Normal People: Share photos with family, sync documents across devices, or participate in private hobbyist circles.
- Developers: Use it as a decentralized backend for data distribution, a P2P package manager, or a secure communication layer for apps.
- Groups & Communities: Build independent digital spaces for neighborhoods, activists, or specialized interest groups without fear of platform de-platforming.
- Private Family Cloud: Share high-res photos and home videos with family members without uploading them to a big-tech cloud.
- Secure File Sync: Keep your important documents synced between your laptop at home and your computer at work, peer-to-peer.
- Creative Collaboration: Musicians, artists, and writers can share large project files and assets directly with collaborators without hitting storage limits.
- Digital Archive: Create a personal "Share" of your favorite recipes or books and subscribe to your friends' collections.
- P2P Package Distribution: Distribute library binaries or assets directly to users, reducing server costs and increasing speed via local swarming. Perfect for game assets or large SDKs.
- Mirroring & Caching: Speed up your entire team by acting as a local peer-to-peer cache for common dependencies, reducing external bandwidth.
- Decentralized Documentation: Host and sync project documentation across contributor nodes, ensuring it's always available even offline.
- Edge Computing Data Bus: Use the DHT and manifest system to coordinate state between distributed edge nodes or IoT devices.
- CI/CD Artifact Sharing: Speed up build pipelines by sharing artifacts between build nodes on the same network without hitting external storage.
- Local Neighborhood Networks: Share local news, tool-lending catalogs, or event info within a physical community. Works even if the local ISP goes down.
- Research Collectives: Securely share datasets and papers within a closed group of researchers with verifiable version history.
- Resilient Communication: Maintain a shared "catalog" of critical information that remains accessible even if the main internet backbone is restricted.
SCP2P isn't just secure; it's architected to protect your digital footprint:
- Zero Tracking: Since there are no central servers, there is no one to track your searches, downloads, or social graphs.
- End-to-End Integrity: Every piece of data is hashed and signed. You don't just "trust" the sender; you verify the math.
- Metadata Privacy: Search is performed locally on your hardware. Your interests never leave your device.
- No Global Index: By eliminating global search, we eliminate global spam and mass-surveillance crawlers.
Current stable release line is v0.3.x, with active development continuing toward broader platform coverage and protocol hardening.
- Core Protocol: Ed25519 identities, BLAKE3 content addressing, and CBOR-framed messaging.
- Networking: Multi-transport support (QUIC and TCP) with authenticated handshakes.
- DHT (Kademlia-lite): Decentralized peer discovery and content location hints.
- Content Sharing: Multi-file and folder sharing with verified swarm downloading.
- Desktop App: A functional Windows/macOS/Linux client built with Tauri and React.
- Persistence: Durable local state using SQLite.
- Mobile Support: Native Android and iOS clients for true portability.
- Universal Packaging: We target support for every mainstream package manager (npm, cargo, brew, apt, chocolatey, etc.).
- Enhanced NAT Traversal: More robust relaying and hole-punching for the toughest network environments.
- SDKs: Stable libraries for multiple languages to allow any dev to build on SCP2P.
- Global Reach: Intelligent community discovery and advanced trust-tier systems.
SCP2P isn't just a tool; it's a global standard in the making. Our mission is to provide the same seamless, secure experience across every environment:
- Any Device: From high-end desktop workstations and always-on servers to smartphones and low-power IoT devices.
- Any OS: First-class support for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS.
- Any Platform: We are committed to bringing SCP2P to every mainstream package manager. Whether you use
npm,cargo,brew,apt,pkg, orchocolatey, SCP2P will be a single command away.
We believe that decentralized communication should be as easy to install and use as any mainstream app, without sacrificing the privacy of the individual.
The project is structured as a Rust workspace:
crates/scp2p-core: The heart of the protocol.crates/scp2p-cli: Interactive command-line client.crates/scp2p-relay: Headless relay / DHT node binary.crates/scp2p-desktop: Desktop application shell and runtime integration.
The scp2p CLI is a fully interactive shell — no subcommands to memorise. Launch it and navigate everything through arrow-key menus:
# Start with defaults (creates scp2p.db in the current directory)
cargo run -p scp2p-cli
# With a bootstrap peer
cargo run -p scp2p-cli -- --bootstrap 192.168.1.10:7001Available operations from the menu:
- Publish files or a whole folder as a new share (private or public)
- Browse any locally cached share and inspect its items
- Subscribe to shares and manage subscriptions
- Search across your subscriptions locally
- Download content by ID or pull an entire share to a directory
- Sync subscriptions against the network
- Generate new Ed25519 keypairs
See DOCS.md for the full reference.
Run the desktop application from the workspace:
cargo run -p scp2p-desktopTo run a headless relay/DHT node (no UI, suitable for servers):
cargo run -p scp2p-relaySee crates/scp2p-relay/README.md for full relay configuration.
# Run the Rust core test suite
cargo testSCP2P is open source and community-driven. We welcome contributors, testers, and visionaries.
- Official Website: scp2p.com
- Found an issue? Open a GitHub Issue.
- Want to contribute? Check out
AGENTS.mdandPLAN.mdfor current priorities. - Guidelines: Please read our Code of Conduct and Security Policy.
- Stay tuned: We are working on providing native packages for all major OS platforms soon!
“Own your catalog, subscribe to your world.”