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Build on Solana with Chainstack: Maximizing node infrastructure performance and reliability

The blockchain world today is buzzing with a multitude of networks, each promising unique capabilities, high performance, and robust security. Among the many layers of this ever-expanding ecosystem lies Solana, a stand-out as an open-source project implementing a high-performance, permissionless blockchain.

Solana’s essence lies in its mission—to bring blockchain to the masses. It’s not just about fostering economic efficiency, but also shaping a user-friendly experience for everyone. Be it power users who require high performance or new consumers stepping into the world of Blockchains, Solana aims to provide supportive experiences for all.

Chainstack Solana Week: Celebrating Solana and its builders

In an enthusiastic endeavor to bring communities together and embark on a deeper exploration of different blockchain protocols, we’re thrilled to kick off our Protocol Weeks series. We’re starting this journey with Solana Week, diving into the expansive Solana ecosystem, discussing crucial matters, and sharing insightful knowledge tailored to maximize the potential of Solana with Chainstack.

The Solana Week stands on three core pillars geared towards enriching our community’s understanding of Solana and enhancing their projects’ flourish.

  1. Understanding Solana: This involves a deep dive into the hallmark advantages of Solana, its performance optimization, and ways to manage infrastructure costs effectively. You’ll get an opportunity to grasp the intricate matters surrounding Solana’s architecture and operations, helping you better utilize its capacities in your blockchain journey.
  2. Learning through sharing: During Chainstack Solana Week, we’ll be sharing a variety of guides, recipes, and best practices designed to accelerate your projects. From learning the nuances of DApp development on Solana to understanding its seamless transaction process, we seek to provide a comprehensive learning experience for Solana builders.
  3. Exclusive Solana Week offer: To make Solana Week even more exciting, we’re offering an exclusive deal. You can use the code “SOLWEEK” and get a staggering 98% off on our Growth Plan. This means for the first month: it’s only $1.

This is not just a celebration; it’s a unique opportunity to find inspiration, upskill, and propel your project to new heights. We look forward to celebrating the vibrant Solana ecosystem with you, helping you envision, and realize new frontiers of innovation in the blockchain landscape.

What makes Solana the go-to-choice for Web3 developers

Among the key attributes that make Solana a highly desirable blockchain solution is its unprecedented transaction processing capacity. It has proven in practice that it is possible to optimally utilize a standard gigabit network to process up to 710,000 transactions per second, assuming the transactions do not exceed an average of 176 bytes.

Notably, Solana manages this impressive feat without substantially compromising the transaction rate, even while maintaining high availability through replicating itself. This stems from leveraging the distributed system technique known as Optimistic Concurrency Control, ordinarily seen in powerful centralized databases.

Perhaps most significant is Solana’s unwavering dedication to remain a decentralized network. The validation process for the Solana network is managed by thousands of nodes that operate independently of each other, ensuring that data is secure and resistant to censorship.

Moreover, Solana has managed to minimize its environmental impact through its proof-of-stake network and other technical advancements. The energy consumed by each Solana transaction is equivalent to just a few Google searches, positioning it as a sustainable blockchain choice with zero net carbon impact.

Exploring Solana use cases across the ecosystem

The Solana blockchain isn’t merely a high-performance, scalable, and decentralized network; its real power comes to life through the diverse range of applications it hosts. From payments and gaming to NFTs, DeFi, and DAOs, Solana accommodates a broad spectrum of dynamic applications, all tapping into the network’s robust capabilities.

  • Payments: Solana Pay, for instance, is revolutionizing transactions for millions of businesses via its Shopify integration. It offers lightning-fast USDC transactions, ultra-low fees, and negligible environmental impact, making it an appealing choice for businesses seeking to embrace blockchain-based payments.
  • Gaming: In the gaming sphere, Solana powers games like Bladerite, a free-to-play melee battle royale game. Leveraging Solana’s robust blockchain, Bladerite offers an in-game item ownership system, providing players a unique blend of gaming and blockchain benefits.
  • NFTs: NFTs are an integral part of the Solana network. Innovative platforms like Anybodies, which helps notable brands connect their products with digital assets, are pioneering unique use-cases for NFTs on Solana.
  • DeFi: In the realm of DeFi, the Solana blockchain supports an opensource order book that democratizes finance for its users. Thanks to its low transaction fees and high speeds, Solana is attractive for DeFi applications seeking to offer seamless, efficient services.
  • DAOs: DAOs also find a home on Solana. Organizations such as MonkeDAO, run by NFT holders, actively contribute to and bolster the network’s performance.

As Solana continues to grow and innovate, the network’s potential for varied applications looks extremely promising. Given Solana’s commitment to scalability, speed, decentralization, and sustainable energy use, it is a choice venue for the development of next-generation applications. The opportunities are immense for developers innovating atop this high-performance blockchain.

Figure 1: A slice of the Solana ecosystem; Source: Solana

Chainstack infrastructure empowers Solana developers

No Web3 developer needs to compromise performance for affordability, not on our watch! From the very beginning, our vision at Chainstack has always been to empower you with affordable infrastructure that delivers outstanding results.

When we embarked on designing our Solana infrastructure, the focus was two-fold: power and flexibility. After all, Web3 developers like yourself understand top-notch infrastructure is critical for their blockchain applications.

That’s exactly why we chose to optimize our platform for Solana. This powerful, high-performance blockchain is paving the way for a new generation of DApps, from DeFi and NFTs to GameFi and beyond. We recognized the potential of Solana early on and have been relentless in our mission to provide you with the robust, reliable node infrastructure you need to build exceptional Web3 experiences on it.

And while performance and functionality form our core, we understand your need for cost-effectiveness. That’s why our Solana pricing is competitive and transparent—enabling you to deliver value without compromising on budget.

Build on Solana cost-effectively with Chainstack

One of the key aspects we focus on at Chainstack is ensuring that our services provide value to the Web3 developers. And a part of this commitment is delivering affordable yet robust infrastructure.

When you look at our Solana pricing, you’ll notice we’re way ahead of the competition. Simply, you get to have your cake and eat it, saving 34%+ with a Growth Solana profile, while enjoying optimal performance with zero compromise. At Chainstack, we aim to provide you with unparalleled value, so you can scale your projects cost-effectively.

Figure 2: Chainstack Solana Growth profile usage and pricing breakdown; Source: Chainstack

We talk numbers because we believe in transparency and affordability. So, as a Web3 developer, you can rest assured that you’re getting plenty of bang for your buck and focus on what matters most—building groundbreaking Solana DApps. This is the Chainstack way!

Unleash Solana speed and efficiency with Chainstack Global Nodes

At Chainstack, we understand that for you, as a Web3 developer, node infrastructure is not just about spin-up times and availability. It’s about being able to count on a reliable, powerful infrastructure that can handle high workloads with ease.

Built on award-winning architecture, our Global Solana nodes deliver lightning-fast response times with 99.9%+ uptime and have been playing an ever more instrumental role since their launch. Simply put, they enable you to focus on what matters most—creating value for your user base, no matter if you’re creating your first DeFi, an immersive in-game world, or an advanced trading algo.

Chainstack Global Nodes run on globally distributed geo-load-balanced architecture that guarantees consistent performance. With an innovative rerouting system, we immediately transfer the workload to the closest best-performing node in the event of any network outage, establishing an effective fallback sequence. This guarantees smooth, efficient, and notably stable operations, so your DApp operates uninterrupted, even in tumultuous times.

Figure 3: Unstoppable RPC Endpoint architecture; Source: Chainstack

Chainstack Dedicated Nodes tackle resource-heavy operations with ease

When exceptional performance is not just a demand but a necessity, it is time to switch over to our Dedicated Nodes. Available exclusively with our Business plan, these nodes are high-performance powerhouses equipped with processors specifically optimized for Solana.

Offered in two configurations, the Large (LGR) and Standard (STD), each dedicated node is tailored to suit varied workloads. The LGR is most suited for the Solana Mainnet in handling hardware-intensive tasks. On the other hand, the STD promises equally impressive performance but is designed for a slightly lesser demanding environment, so it is best suited for the Devnet.

With Chainstack Dedicated Nodes for Solana, you enjoy far more than a performance boost. You experience an environment sculptured for veritable high-impact operations with resources tailored to elevate your blockchain application journey. Secure uninterrupted performance, accelerate your operations, and conquer your development challenges with Chainstack Solana nodes.

Comparing Global and Trader Nodes: What’s best for your Solana project?

You’re ready to take your Solana project to the next level, but is your infrastructure? Depending on the scale of your project, Chainstack provides Global and Trader Nodes to match your needs.

Our Global nodes are cost-effective and seamlessly scalable, making them ideal for projects with fluctuating workloads. On the other hand, Trader Nodes offer stricter isolation, more resources, and customization, so you can have maximum control over your infrastructure and how it behaves.

Overall, Chainstack gives you access to Solana Nodes that surpass the recommended hardware configuration for Solana development by a large margin. Expect exceptional performance, memory, and storage capable of pushing your development to new heights.

Supported Solana networks on Chainstack

The rich diversity of Solana networks is one of its many strengths, and at Chainstack, we are invested in harnessing their distinct offerings. We support all Solana networks, each designed to cater to a unique set of needs within your development journey.

  1. Mainnet: This is Solana’s central processing realm where all transactions occur. It’s where the distributed ledger maintains everyone’s token balances. If you’re dealing with NFT transactions, you’ll be glad to know that we’ve enabled all three indexes (program-id, spl-token-owner, spl-token-mint) for quick and efficient transactions.
  2. Devnet: Are you looking to test and develop without risking real assets on the mainnet? Then Devnet is your playground. It provides access to all functionalities of the main net, helping you build and refine without any real-asset interactions.

Choosing the right Chainstack Solana nodes hosting

Where you host your nodes matters—it is crucial for maximizing the performance and reliability of your infrastructure. At Chainstack, we offer a wide range of location options to host your Solana nodes, each designed to deliver optimal performance for your specific context.

Choose between US – Ashburn (ash1), and EU – Amsterdam (ams1) hosting options, each allowing you to deploy Global and Trader Nodes for both Mainnet and Devnet. Or just go global with Chainstack Global Nodes for Solana Mainnet:

  1. US – Ashburn (ash1)
    • Mainnet and Devnet
    • Global and Trader
  2. EU – Amsterdam (ams1)
    • Mainnet only
    • Global and Trader
  3. Worldwide (global1)
    • Mainnet only
    • Global only

So, regardless if you’re aiming for maximum reach with the Solana Mainnet or focusing on development within the Solana Devnet, our flexible hosting options ensure that Chainstack always offers you impeccable performance, coupled with strong reliability and security. Make your choice and let our robust and reliable infrastructure take your Solana deployments to the next level.

Understanding Chainstack Solana performance

Performance is not just about speed; it’s about reliability, scalability, and efficiency. And when it comes to the Chainstack Solana infrastructure, we exceed on all fronts.

Our Dedicated Nodes deliver a stellar performance, with the STD maintaining a record of approximately 1400 RPS, while LGR averages around 3000 RPS for common methods. Furthermore, for Full Nodes in Ashburn and Amsterdam locations under Global setups, the RPS levels up even higher to around an impressive 6200.

Each type, whether it’s STD, LGR, or Master Node, has no set limits. This means that your operations never face an arbitrary cap allowing for uninhibited scaling. As for capacity, our setups range impressive in their offering, with up to 24 cores/48 threads available in Master nodes and Dedicated nodes.

But high performance needs high power! Our Master nodes for Mainnet come equipped with a whopping 1TB of RAM, similarly provisioned for our large dedicated nodes. For Devnet, our standard dedicated nodes also stand strong with 512 GB of RAM.

Significantly, such comprehensive performance metrics are seamlessly supported by a robust backbone infrastructure with NVME setups boasting a wide 3.8TB x2 space in every category. This ensures that every transaction is accommodated effectively, and your data storage concerns remain a thing of the past.

In essence, we have engineered our Solana infrastructure to not just handle but blaze through high workloads, offering performance, precision, and power at every step. Whether you’re a new Web3 developer exploring its potential or a seasoned player pushing the envelope of decentralized applications, our Solana infrastructure is here to meet your needs and exceed your expectations.

How Chainstack Cloud ensures optimal Solana node performance

The power of Solana lies in its speed and throughput capabilities and at Chainstack, we ensure you experience this power at its best. Powered by Chainstack Cloud, a purpose-built bare-metal solution, our Solana RPC nodes are able to scale seamlessly without any network disruptions. This is our way of enabling developers to build powerful applications on Solana without worrying about infrastructure.

Security is paramount, which is why our HTTP and WebSocket APIs are well-guarded. Need to boost your RPS performance to avoid traffic congestion? Our Solana nodes deliver impressively low latencies in Europe and the US, with maximum throughput, no matter your workload size.

All-in-all Chainstack Cloud offers your Solana project unparalleled security through physical isolation and dedicated hardware for steady disk I/O performance.

Bringing it all together

In an era where the pace of innovation in the Web3 space is accelerating, Chainstack is your reliable partner. We provide you with the robust and scalable infrastructure you need to build groundbreaking applications on Solana, one of the fastest and most reliable blockchains in the world.

With our Global and Trader Solana nodes, you can harness the full potential of this powerful blockchain. Meanwhile, our clear performance statistics, support for both Solana Mainnet and Devnet, as well as our flexible hosting options ensure that you have all the resources you need to thrive in the Web3 space.

Our platform also opens the door to Solana’s historical data and an integrated marketplace that brings together the Solana community. Plus, our transparent and competitive pricing ensures that you can deliver game-changing solutions without breaking the bank.

To the Web3 developers out there—Chainstack and Solana are here to power your blockchain journey. Experience the boundless potential of Solana with Chainstack and redefine the frontiers of Web3 today.

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