Solidus Pod
Solidus Pod vs Inrupt PodSpaces
Inrupt runs the same protocol with an enterprise trust story we don't have yet; we're betting a chain-anchored DID is worth more than a WebID over a multi-year horizon — a bet, not a result.
Solidus is a public testnet: no mainnet, no token, no external audit, and no paying customer. Every claim below is checkable; none of them are a substitute for the certifications an incumbent already holds.
What Inrupt does better
- Live production customers: BBC, NatWest, NHS, and the Flanders government, plus an Accenture enterprise channel. Solidus Pod has none — no pilot, no logo.
- A $30M Series A (Dec 2021) and years of operating history. Solidus Pod's funding for this product specifically is not disclosed.
- Tim Berners-Lee's own company, and the Open Data Institute holds formal Solid spec stewardship (Oct 2024). Solidus is not a spec steward of anything.
- Production deployments today, even though PodSpaces itself is in Dev Preview. Solidus Pod is public testnet only — no mainnet.
- It's the incumbent choice for anyone who needs to trust a Solid vendor right now, not in five years.
Where Solidus is different
- Solid-compatible today on real, unmodified upstream Community Solid Server 7.1.9 — reproducible locally (pnpm start; curl -sI localhost:3101/ returns real LDP + Accept-Patch headers) — with a did:solidus bridge in front of it, betting on a consensus-enforced, chain-anchored identity primitive instead of WebID's HTTP+TLS identifier. Framed as a tradeoff, not a superiority claim.
- did:solidus is registered in the W3C DID Method Registry (PR #713, merged 2026-07-04) and Solidus is a DIF Associate Member — open, checkable standards participation that Inrupt's brief records no equivalent of.
Side by side
| Feature | Solidus | Inrupt |
|---|---|---|
| Live production customers | None — no pilot, no logo | BBC, NatWest, NHS, Flanders governmentInrupt wins |
| Network stage | Public testnet only, no mainnet | Production deployments; PodSpaces itself in Dev PreviewInrupt wins |
| Funding | Not disclosed for this product | $30M Series A (Dec 2021)Inrupt wins |
| Protocol basis | Community Solid Server 7.1.9, unmodified — Solid-compatible, not conformance-tested | Solid protocol (LDP, WebID, ACL) — spec co-authored by their founder |
| Identity layer | did:solidus — chain-anchored DID via a bridge, production wiring not yet confirmed end-to-end | WebID, an HTTP+TLS identifier |
| Spec stewardship | Not a spec steward; did:solidus registered as a W3C DID method (PR #713, merged) | Open Data Institute holds Solid spec stewardship (Oct 2024)Inrupt wins |
| Chain anchoring | Architectural bet: DID-anchored on testnet with consensus-enforced revocation, unproven at scale | None — Solid pods are not blockchain-anchored |
| Audit / certification | Unaudited — stated first, not a footnote | Not stated in brief |
| Enterprise channel | None | AccentureInrupt wins |
Check it yourself
did:solidus is registered in the W3C DID Method Registry: curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/w3c/did-extensions/pulls/713 | jq '{state,merged,merged_at}' → merged: true, merged_at: 2026-07-04. Solidus's DIF Associate Member logo is live on identity.foundation.