Zapme Social is building a social platform where people own their content and their connections instead of handing that control to a single company. As the platform grows, its infrastructure needs to reflect the same idea. That's why the team turned to Hippius, a distributed cloud platform, to store and deliver content across Zapme Social.
The Challenge: Finding a Distributed Cloud Storage Provider
Zapme Social was originally hosted on AWS. Moving the platform away from centralized infrastructure has been part of the team's long-term plan from the start, and storage was one of the first pieces to change.
The move wasn't prompted by a single outage or a cost spike. It came from a broader architectural issue: Zapme Social is being built around decentralization, and relying on centralized hosting created an ongoing conflict with that direction. That tension is a familiar one for platforms built on heavy object storage, since providers like AWS typically charge to move data back out of their network, reinforcing the kind of lock-in Zapme was trying to design away from in the first place.
What the team needed was a provider that matched where they wanted to take the rest of the platform, both technically and philosophically.
The Role of Hippius: S3-Compatible Storage for Zapme Social
Hippius now sits behind Zapme Social as its storage layer, hosting and delivering content across the platform on a distributed network instead of a single centralized data center.
Hippius is built around a network of independent, incentivized storage nodes rather than a single company's data centers. The product Zapme relies on is Hippius's S3-compatible object storage: the same API and tooling teams already use with providers like AWS, but running across that independent network instead of one company's servers. Data is encrypted at rest, and every storage claim, payment, and node action is recorded on Hippius's own blockchain, so the network's behavior can be checked rather than taken on trust.
The migration covers the storage infrastructure behind Zapme Social's community of more than 6,000 members, including user-generated images, videos, and other social content. The team moved it over in stages, testing reliability and performance at each step rather than cutting the platform over all at once, with the goal of avoiding disruption for members while building a foundation that could support continued growth.
Why Zapme Chose Hippius's Distributed Storage
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For Zapme, the appeal was as much philosophical as technical. They tested several storage providers and a few things stood out during that evaluation:
- Alignment with the mission. Hippius's focus on distributed infrastructure and transparency fit naturally with Zapme's own push toward a decentralized social media platform.
- A practical migration path. Because Hippius's storage is S3-compatible, Zapme could move content over without rebuilding its stack around a new, unfamiliar API. It's a genuine s3 alternative rather than a research project.
- No egress fees. Unlike AWS and other major providers, Hippius doesn't charge to move data out of its network, which matters for a platform whose entire job is serving media back out to users.
- Faster uploads. Since making the move, uploads feel noticeably more responsive, with content beginning to transfer almost immediately compared with Zapme's previous setup.
"Before choosing Hippius, we tested several decentralised storage providers. Hippius was the one most closely aligned with what we needed, both technically and philosophically. We were also excited to see the support and engagement by the Hippius team, very welcoming and were more than happy to support us with anything we needed. This made our transition over so much easier." 
— Stellio Koutsis, Product Lead at Zapme Social
The Result: A Step Toward a Fully Decentralized Social Platform
For Zapme, the bigger win isn't a single number, it's what the move represents for where the platform is headed:
"Switching to Hippius is a real step toward the fully decentralised platform we're building for our community. Plus our team is already seeing much faster uploads."
— Stellio Koutsis, Product Lead at Zapme Social
Strategically, decentralized infrastructure is no longer something Zapme is testing, it's becoming part of the platform's core architecture. The team is already planning to bring Hippius's CDN, caching, and confidential compute products into Zapme Social as they become available, extending the same distributed model beyond storage.
If you're building a platform where users expect ownership and transparency instead of blind trust in a provider, storage is a good place to start. Learn more about Hippius storage and how it could fit your own infrastructure.
About Zapme
Zapme is building toward a decentralized social and communications platform, combining private social networking with global eSIM connectivity and phone numbers. Zapme Social, its social product, gives users feeds, stories, and community channels built around ownership and transparency rather than a single company controlling the network.
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About Hippius
Hippius is a distributed cloud platform built to give users a verifiable alternative to providers like AWS and Google Cloud. Files are encrypted and distributed across an independent network rather than held in a single provider's data center. Every storage claim, payment, and miner action is recorded on Hippius's own blockchain, so instead of asking users to trust the platform, Hippius lets them check it for themselves. On top of that foundation sits a full product suite: personal cloud storage, S3-compatible object storage with no egress fees, confidential computing on secure hardware, and a container and model registry for AI. Hippius was built by The Nerve Lab.
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