Last updated: September 2026
Compare · Solana RPC
13 Solana RPC providers, every feature axis — free tier size, paid pricing, gRPC streaming, staked connections, DAS API, webhooks, archive depth. Pick on facts, not on the homepage hero.
Pricing pulled from each provider's public plans · feature flags verified against current docs
The lineup
What's in this comparison.
Free + paid
Specialist providers
Yellowstone streams
QoS-prioritised TX
The table
Sort by lowest paid price, best free tier, or feature breadth. Click any provider to read the full review.
Largest free allowance on paper (200M credits) across 80+ chains
Flat per-request pricing, no credits or RPS caps on paid plans
Cheapest per-request pricing
Yellowstone gRPC at $38/mo
Dedicated infra, direct engineer support via Telegram
Solana specialist with gRPC, Shredstream and Aperture
Best for Solana-focused devs
Marketplace add-ons, gRPC, DAS and webhooks in one plan
20M request-units for $49/mo, RPS scales with plan
130+ blockchains through one API
30M CU free tier with webhooks and DAS
Lowest latency for HFT and MEV
Feature guide
Real-time block and transaction streaming via Yellowstone gRPC. Essential for trading bots and MEV.
RPC traffic routed through staked validators for higher transaction priority and faster landing.
Digital Asset Standard API for querying compressed NFTs (cNFTs) and token metadata.
Push notifications for on-chain events — account changes, transactions, program logs.
Access to full historical blockchain data beyond the standard ~2-day retention window.
Provider specializes exclusively in Solana, often meaning deeper integration and optimization.
How it works
An RPC is your app's doorway to the chain. Every provider above runs validator/RPC nodes and exposes them to you — these four mechanics explain what they serve and why latency, limits and streaming differ.
Your client sends JSON-RPC requests to an endpoint over HTTPS for one-shot reads and writes, or over a WebSocket (wss://) for subscriptions. The node executes the call against its view of the ledger and returns a JSON result — this is the standard interface every Solana SDK and CLI speaks.
Read methods (getAccountInfo, getBalance, getTransaction, getProgramAccounts) query chain state and history; sendTransaction submits a signed transaction to the network and forwards it toward the current leader. WebSocket subscriptions (accountSubscribe, logsSubscribe) push updates as state changes.
A node only answers as fast as the network round-trip plus its own load, so geographic proximity and the specific method dominate real latency. Providers cap usage by requests/credits per second or compute units per month — exceed it and you get throttled (HTTP 429), which is why tier and region matter.
Standard RPC makes you poll; Geyser/Yellowstone gRPC is a separate streaming plane that pushes blocks, transactions and account writes in real time — essential for bots. Separately, archive (full-history) nodes can answer queries for old slots, where non-archive nodes only retain recent ledger data.
Guide
Your RPC directly impacts speed, reliability, and cost. The right provider depends on what you're building.
Latency
Solana-only providers like Helius and Triton typically offer the lowest latency due to dedicated infrastructure. Latency also varies by region and by RPC method — test with the calls you actually use.
Staked connections
Routes transactions through staked validators for higher QoS priority during congestion. Essential for any app that sends transactions, not just reads.
gRPC streaming
Real-time block and transaction streaming via Yellowstone gRPC. Required for trading bots, MEV searchers, and real-time analytics.
Pricing model
Alchemy and dRPC charge per compute unit. GetBlock now tiers by Node plan (Shared/Limitless/Dedicated) rather than a flat per-request rate. RPC Fast meters in weighted credits, similar to Helius and QuickNode. Chainstack tiers by request-units (RU), with the RPS cap rising per plan. FluxRPC is the outlier: no credits, no multipliers, no add-ons. Plans from $38/mo include bandwidth, and extra bandwidth is only bought if a plan goes over. Pick based on your usage pattern.
Free tier
Ankr has the largest allowance on paper (200M credits, not directly comparable to CU). Among CU-metered providers dRPC leads with 50M CU/month and Alchemy follows at 30M. dRPC and Ankr tie for the highest published free RPS (30). Most production apps will outgrow free tiers quickly.
Specialization
Solana-only providers (Helius, Triton, Syndica) invest everything into Solana optimization. Multi-chain providers (Alchemy, QuickNode, Chainstack, RPC Fast) offer broader ecosystem support.
Recommendations
Trading bots & MEV
Both offer gRPC streaming and staked connections — the two features most critical for fast TX execution. Triton created Yellowstone gRPC and has the deepest HFT integration.
Consumer dApps
Best combination of reliability, dev tools, and enhanced APIs. Helius's DAS API is essential if your app touches compressed NFTs or needs parsed transactions.
Budget-conscious
Start with Ankr (200M free credits), dRPC (50M free CU) or Alchemy (30M free CU). When ready to scale, RPC Fast ($45/mo) and Chainstack ($49/mo for 20M request-units) offer predictable, tiered pricing.
Multi-chain projects
Alchemy, QuickNode, and Chainstack support Solana alongside Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, and more. Single-bill, single-dashboard if you span chains.
Latency notes
Most published latency benchmarks are run and funded by the providers themselves. Read them as directional, not gospel.
QuickNode and Triton One consistently ranked fastest in this p95-across-5-regions test. Triton at roughly 2× QuickNode's p95. Helius, Alchemy, and Chainstack followed. Caveat: QuickNode ran and funded the benchmark about themselves.
dRPC, Syndica, RPC Fast, FluxRPC, and Supanode have no publicly available independent latency data as of our review. RPC Fast publishes colocation latency figures (<0.9 ms) that only apply inside their data center. FluxRPC is the newest provider here (public since mid-2025) and, unlike the rest of this list, isn't tracked by any of the benchmarking tools below yet. We have not benchmarked Supanode ourselves, and haven't found an independent third-party benchmark of it either — its table entries above reflect confirmed features and pricing only, not measured performance.
CompareNodes measures from 27 locations on 6 continents. Thorofare by Triton One is an open-source slot-lifecycle benchmarking tool. TestDrive by Helius is a self-serve latency tester at testdrive.helius.xyz.
For latency-critical apps, geographic proximity matters more than any global benchmark. Test with the methods you actually use — getBalance results can differ significantly from getTransaction or sendTransaction.
FAQ
A gRPC stream hands you raw transactions that you still have to decode. If what you need is the swaps themselves, a parsed, normalised DEX trade stream skips that decoding step.
RPC gets your orders landed; it does not tell the bot what to trade. For KOL buys, new deployer launches and copy-trade triggers pushed over WebSocket, see signal data for Solana trading bots.
Keep comparing
DEXs, RPC providers, liquid-staking protocols, and trading-bot fees — all compared the same way.