Head-to-head · Comparison
Helius vs Firedancer
Features, pricing, health score, community ratings — side-by-side from the live MadeOnSol database.
Updated June 4, 2026
 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Rating | (1) | (0) |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| Health | Healthy | Healthy |
| Chain | solana only | solana only |
| Open Source | ||
| Features | 8 features | 5 features |
| Upvotes |
Pros & cons
The trade-offs.
Helius
- Most feature-rich Solana developer platform beyond basic RPC
- Enhanced APIs dramatically reduce development time for common tasks
- Webhook system eliminates the need for custom blockchain indexing
- Team actively contributes to Solana core development and ecosystem
- Excellent documentation and developer support
- Premium tiers required for production-level request volumes
- Some enhanced APIs have rate limits that can constrain high-traffic apps
- Solana-only — teams building multi-chain need additional providers
- Free tier limitations may be restrictive for growing applications
Firedancer
Analysis
Which should you choose?
.
Overview
Helius Helius is the premier developer platform for Solana, providing enterprise-grade RPC infrastructure, webhooks, enhanced APIs, and developer tools that power many of the ecosystem's most popular applica... Firedancer Firedancer is an independent Solana validator client built from scratch in C by Jump Crypto. Capable of processing over 1 million transactions per second on commodity hardware, Firedancer represents o...
Community Ratings
Helius is rated higher by the MadeOnSol community with 4.0/5 stars across 1 review, compared to 0.0/5 for Firedancer (0 reviews). That said, ratings only tell part of the story — what matters most is which tool fits your specific workflow.
Pricing & Value
Helius uses a freemium model — Free tier: 30 RPS, 1M credits/day. Developer: $49/mo. Business: $499/mo. Enterprise: custom pricing., while Firedancer is free. Firedancer has the edge for budget-conscious users, though Helius's paid tier may offer features worth paying for.
Key Features
Helius offers 8 features including Enterprise-grade RPC nodes with optimized routing and low latency, Enhanced transaction API parsing raw data into human-readable formats, Digital Asset API (DAS) for comprehensive NFT and token metadata, and 5 more. Firedancer counters with 5 features including Independent Solana validator client in C, 1M+ TPS on commodity hardware, Live on mainnet with 50,000+ blocks produced, and 2 more. The right choice depends on which specific features matter for your use case — check the individual review pages for full breakdowns.
Reliability & Health
We monitor both tools around the clock for uptime, SSL validity, and response times. Helius currently has a healthy health status with 100.0% uptime over the last 30 days. Firedancer is rated healthy with 100.0% uptime. For tools you rely on daily — especially trading bots or wallets — uptime and speed are non-negotiable.
Strengths
Helius's key strengths include most feature-rich solana developer platform beyond basic rpc, enhanced apis dramatically reduce development time for common tasks, webhook system eliminates the need for custom blockchain indexing.
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