Chainfeeds Summary:
Unlike other blockchains, Solana's parallel processing and account-based model present unique challenges when querying, indexing, and analyzing on-chain activity. Whether you are a developer building applications, an analyst tracking trends, or just an enthusiast trying to understand transaction flows, having the right tools is crucial.
Source:
https://www.helius.dev/blog/solana-data-tools
Author:
Jack Stewart
Perspective:
Jack Stewart: RPC services allow developers and applications to interact with Solana, providing access to the blockchain state, transaction submission, and historical data retrieval. There are many different RPC providers to choose from. While the core functionality is typically the same, there are several important considerations when comparing RPC providers: latency, uptime, data accuracy, rate limits, cost, native Solana experience, and support. The most common providers include Helius, Triton, QuickNode, Alchemy, Ankr, and ChainStack. Tools like Webhooks, WebSockets, and gRPC are more suitable for low-latency data needs, such as real-time account or program monitoring. For real-time data access, Geyser streams and Webhooks-based services can push continuous updates on Solana blockchain activity without the need for pull-based RPC polling. These solutions are critical for trading bots, analytics platforms, and real-time monitoring applications where low-latency data is essential. Geyser streams directly subscribe to Solana validators, allowing external services to receive real-time updates on transactions, account changes, and program interactions. This approach is more efficient than constantly querying RPCs, as it reduces unnecessary requests and provides instant access to new blockchain events. Geyser plugins allow validators to stream real-time data directly to external services, making it a powerful tool for indexing, custom data aggregation, and on-chain analysis. However, setting up a gRPC stream requires running your own node or using a dedicated node. Flipside and Dune provide SQL-based access to Solana on-chain data, allowing users to query and analyze historical blockchain activity without dealing with raw RPC calls. These platforms index and structure Solana data, making it easier to use for analytical use cases. Since their data sets have delayed updates, they are not suitable for real-time data retrieval like RPC methods and data streaming tools. For example, Flipside has around a 15-minute delay, while Dune's data latency ranges from 1 to 60 minutes, depending on the data set. Dune allows users to write SQL queries on the curated Solana data sets, providing more flexibility to define data models. Users can create custom tables and dashboards to track blockchain activity. The platform charges based on usage, and query costs may increase with higher usage. For in-depth blockchain analysis, custom indexing solutions offer a more efficient way to query historical data than raw RPC calls. Solana's transaction history is massive, and directly pulling past data from RPC nodes can be very slow, expensive, and inefficient. Instead, indexing solutions store and structure blockchain data, making queries faster and more flexible. Custom indexers allow developers to define their own indexing logic, making it easier to analyze long-term trends, DeFi activity, and token flows without constantly extracting raw blockchain logs. Platforms like Google BigQuery provide SQL-based access to Solana blockchain history, allowing for large-scale analysis without running personal indexers. Unlike Flipside and Dune, BigQuery allows users to define their own data models, making it well-suited for custom analytics and business intelligence applications. For long-term blockchain archiving, projects like Filecoin's Old Faithful, Arweave, and Shadow Drive store raw blockchain data, allowing for decentralized access independent of centralized databases.
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