Build better with Solana nodes

Solana is a high-throughput L1 that uses a proof-of-history clock plus proof-of-stake to push block times down to ~400 ms and fees to fractions of a cent. It targets order-book trading, real-time gaming, and other latency-sensitive use cases.

Solana’s RPC API is a JSON-over-HTTP and WebSocket interface that wraps validator internals. End-points like getAccountInfo, getRecentBlockhash, and sendTransaction deliver sub-second access to the cluster. Binary data are base-64–encoded, so SDKs (e.g., @solana/web3.js) handle packing for you.

Costs swing with workload: a validator-grade Solana RPC may need 128 GB RAM, high-end GPUs, and huge IO—easily US $400-800 / month in the cloud. Lighter “getAccountInfo” workloads are cheaper but still storage-intensive. For most teams, the cheapest approach is to consume Solana endpoints from an RPC provider like Chainstack instead of renting monster hardware.

Solana runs public “api.mainnet-beta.solana.com” clusters you can hit for zero cost, yet congestion and dropped connections are common. A no-cost Chainstack plan still covers 3 million calls monthly and adds load-balanced stability.

Grab the Solana endpoint from the Chainstack Console dashboard. Add it to Phantom (Settings → Change Network → Custom) or set connection = Connection(<URL>) in your TypeScript to route calls through Chainstack.