Usually, when browsing the artifacts under Artifactory remote repositories in the UI, each artifact will include a warning box that states that “This artifact is not cached”.
This warning box is shown because artifacts listed under remote Artifactory repositories are simply a representation of what exists on the upstream side.
These artifacts are not actually hosted on the Artifactory instance the users are querying (e.g. the instance which holds the remote repository itself), meaning the artifacts cannot be accessed directly.
Once an artifact is pulled from the remote repository or when an Event-based pull is triggered, the artifact will be cached in the remote-cache repository, which “physically” locates it within the Artifactory instance’s filestore and database. Then, the artifact can be accessed directly via the remote-cache repository.
To conclude, remote repositories are used to represent and pull artifacts from the source they point to. Locally accessing these artifacts is only possible via the matching remote-cache repository once the artifacts have been pulled and cached.