LionShare differs from these other peer-to-peer (P2P) applications in several major ways:

• LionShare will search academic databases of digital resources in addition to the shared files residing on personal hard drives that other P22 are sharing.

• Users must be authenticated and, hence, cannot remain anonymous.

• The LionShare network allows users to share files while not connected via "always on" library repository server, called nServers.

• LionShare will include academic collaboration tools rather than just file transfers.