Not all bundlers are created equal
GM Builders,
In Sam’s recent post on X, he incorrectly stated that:
" ... There is a new, 100% free, and 100% Irys compatible bundler available at https://up.arweave.net. Simply swap your Irys node URL to this one in order to use it. This conclusively solves the problem for Arweave users."
This statement overlooks multiple crucial areas where the up.arweave.net [1] (Up) bundler lacks essential features required by our SDK and other tooling. Some features have yet to be implemented, while others are buggy and/or incomplete. Before considering switching bundlers, we encourage you to read this document to understand how switching may negatively affect your application.
In addition to this technical discussion, users are encouraged to read our recent blog post from our founder Josh Benaron.
| Feature | Irys Bundler & tooling | up.arweave.net Bundler |
|---|---|---|
| Devnet | ✅ | ❌ |
| Pay in AR token | 20 min to fund | 20 min to fund |
| Pay in any token | ✅ near instant | ❌ |
| Sign with any key | ✅ | ❌ |
| High-resolution timestamp | ✅ | ✅ |
| Valid receipts | ✅ | ❌ ⚠️Invalid Signature ⚠️ |
| Reliable uploading (chunked) | ✅ | ❌ |
| Irys SDK uploads > 50MB | ✅ | ❌ |
| Transaction throughput | 50,000+ TPS (proven 180+ sustained, 450,000,000 total over 4+ weeks) | ~120 TPS (unpublished / not production proven) |
| Supported web wallets | ✅ Arconnect ✅ Phantom ✅ Metamask ✅ Any EVM/ETH web wallet | ✅ Arconnect ✅ arweave.app ❌ Phantom ❌ Metamask ❌ Any EVM/ETH web wallet |
| Supported providers | ✅ ArweaveWalletAdapter ✅ Ethers 5 & 6 ✅ WalletConnect ✅ Privy ✅ viem/WAGMI ✅ RainbowKit … and more | ✅ ArweaveWalletAdapter ❌ Ethers 5 & 6 ❌ WalletConnect ❌ Privy ❌ viem/WAGMI ❌ RainbowKit |
| Cross-chain indexing | ✅ Query native address ✅ Query native tokens | ❌ ⚠️Mangles address⚠️ ❌ No token filter |
| Receipts | ✅ At time of upload (for any transaction): ✅ Via GQL ✅ Via web request | ✅ At time of upload (for any transaction) ❌ Via GQL ❌ Via web request |
| Query package | ✅ Arweave:transactions ✅ Arweave:blocks ✅ Irys:transactions | ✅ Arweave:transactions ✅ Arweave:blocks ❌ Irys:transactions |
| Maturity | ✅ Heavily documented ✅ Battle-tested (3+ years) ✅ 1.7B transactions total ✅ Proven scalability | ❌ No documentation ❌ Very recent (~2 days) ❌ ~10k transactions ❌ Unproven |
Gateway migration
If the Up bundler's missing features or functionality could adversely affect your applications, use the Irys gateway at https://gateway.irys.xyz and Irys bundlers for uninterrupted, high-quality service.
Upload functions
When you use the Irys bundlers in the browser and on the server, we support uploading strings, buffers, files, and folders of any size. When switching to the Up bundler, you lose the ability to upload files and folders, and upload limits are capped at 50MB per transaction. This is because the Up bundler does not support chunked uploads.
Provenance
When you upload to Irys, you get a cryptographically signed receipt that can be used to trustlessly prove the provenance of your upload. The Up bundler dangerously returns a receipt that appears valid, but is actually cryptographically invalid [2]. This is highly irresponsible and dangerous, as receipts are designed to be publicly cryptographically verifiable proofs of provenance.
Cryptography
Irys is cross-chain, we support payment with 14 different tokens and signing with that chain’s associated native cryptography. The Up bundler only supports uploads signed with an Arweave private key, and token payment with just AR. This removes users from the large set of ecosystems and tooling around each project.
Browser support
Using the Irys bundler via the browser is a frictionless experience as we support most popular browser wallets - including Metamask, Phantom, Arconnect, associated provider libraries, and others. The Up bundler only supports Arconnect and Arweave.app, meaning browser-based applications switching to the Up bundler will introduce significant friction for their users.
Devnet
When working with Irys, we a have Devnet used when building applications. On our Devnet uploads are kept for ~60 days and you pay using free tokens available from faucets. The Up bundler has no Devnet.
Scalability
Irys’ bundlers are highly scalable and battle-tested, we handle 90% of the transactions posted to Arweave, and we have released a video showing how we scale to 50,000 TPS. In the last month alone we processed over 440,640,000 transactions at a sustained TPS of 180 - with 0 outages. The Up bundler has yet to release information on its ability to scale.
In conclusion
Irys has, and always will be, about its users. We exist to support you and bring strong provenance to the world. If you have any questions or concerns and want to reach out please do. Let us know how you’re being impacted, we are here, ready to move heaven and earth to support you.
Footnotes:
[1] Up.arweave.net is heavily associated with ArDrive turbo, which is run by ar.io:
[2] Testing shows that up receipts are invalid for an identical transaction:
