It's always tricky to do head-to-head comparisons as there is so much detail with these projects.
Freenet is designed to be a complete drop-in replacement for the world wide web, handling the discovery, distribution, and execution of an ecosystem of decentralized software. It's a platform. Similar to how installing a browser gives you access to the entire web, installing Freenet gives you access to all decentralized services built on it.
Freenet's most unique architectural feature is that it's a global key-value store where keys are cryptographic contracts that control what values are permissible under the key and how these values can change. This is the key (pun intended) idea that makes it so general purpose.
My impression with Veilid is that it's more a set of tools and libraries that can be incorporated into software - but it isn't a platform in its own right that can allow software to be discovered and distributed.
Think of it like the difference between buying a car (freenet) or a crank shaft that must be integrated with other components to be useful.
Freenet is designed to be a complete drop-in replacement for the world wide web, handling the discovery, distribution, and execution of an ecosystem of decentralized software. It's a platform. Similar to how installing a browser gives you access to the entire web, installing Freenet gives you access to all decentralized services built on it.
Freenet's most unique architectural feature is that it's a global key-value store where keys are cryptographic contracts that control what values are permissible under the key and how these values can change. This is the key (pun intended) idea that makes it so general purpose.
My impression with Veilid is that it's more a set of tools and libraries that can be incorporated into software - but it isn't a platform in its own right that can allow software to be discovered and distributed.
Think of it like the difference between buying a car (freenet) or a crank shaft that must be integrated with other components to be useful.