Orb vs Sphere

Overview

Orb Orb is a free, open-source Solana block explorer built by Helius that emphasizes speed and readability. It uses the Enhanced Transactions API to parse Solana transaction details into human-readable fo... Sphere Sphere is a next-generation crypto payments infrastructure platform built on Solana, providing APIs and tools for businesses to accept and process cryptocurrency payments at scale. It targets enterpri...

Community Ratings

Sphere is rated higher by the MadeOnSol community with 5.0/5 stars across 1 review, compared to 4.0/5 for Orb (1 review). That said, ratings only tell part of the story — what matters most is which tool fits your specific workflow.

Pricing & Value

Orb uses a free model, while Sphere is freemium — Free to start. Transaction-based pricing. Enterprise plans available.. Orb has the edge for users who want a no-cost solution, though Sphere's paid features may justify the investment for power users.

Key Features

Orb offers 7 features including AI-powered transaction summaries, Human-readable transaction parsing, Time machine for historical transaction search, and 4 more. Sphere counters with 8 features including Comprehensive REST APIs for programmatic payment processing, Hosted checkout pages for no-code payment acceptance, Subscription and recurring billing management, and 5 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. Orb currently has a healthy health status with 100.0% uptime over the last 30 days. Sphere is rated healthy with 100.0% uptime. For any tool you trust with your funds, trades, or yield, uptime and speed are non-negotiable.

Strengths

Orb's key strengths include completely free with no rate limits for basic use, ai explanations make complex transactions understandable, fastest archival data access on solana. Sphere stands out for developer-first api design enables deep integration into any application, compliance features make it suitable for regulated business use cases, automatic stablecoin conversion protects merchants from crypto volatility.