Alchemy vs. Infura - Blockchain Node Provider Comparison

Written by Frederik B

Reviewed by Logan Ross

Published on 2022-08-129 min read

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Alchemy's blockchain development platform provides RPC nodes with more accurate and reliable blockchain data, and more web3 tools and APIs compared to Infura.

Alchemy and Infura are two popular blockchain node providers that offer access to critical blockchain infrastructure as a service. Self-hosting nodes is expensive due to the rising costs of cloud hosting, the cost of dedicated engineering resources to maintain them, and the lost opportunity costs when a node goes down due to CPU spikes, memory leaks, disk issues, bugs, and more.

In this article, we'll help you decide which node provider is right for your needs by comparing Alchemy and Infura across nine categories:

1. Supported Blockchains

2. Node Latency

3. Data Accuracy

4. Node Reliability

5. Pricing

6. Enhanced APIs

7. Developer Tools

8. User Experience

9. Customer Support

Alchemy vs. Infura Comparison

Alchemy and Infura are two blockchain node providers that help web3 startups build dapps without running their own nodes.

Choosing the right blockchain node provider is a crucial step in the web3 development process, as you want to use a developer platform that offers the most cost-effective requests, the best tools, reliable service, accurate data, and the ability to scale on demand to grow with your project.

What is Alchemy?

Alchemy provides blockchain APIs and node infrastructure, supporting over 10 million end users and powering some of the world's top blockchain apps, including OpenSea, Trust Wallet, and 0x, and the largest web2 companies, such as Shopify and Adobe.

Alchemy offers a suite of developer tools to help developers build, debug, and ship products faster and monitor dashboards to track errors, user insights, and trends.

Alchemy is one of the biggest venture-backed startups in web3 with investors including Pantera, Coatue, A16z, Redpoint, Lightspeed, Coinbase, and some of the most accomplished individuals in tech, including Naval Ravikant, Peter Thiel, and Reid Hoffman.

Alchemy Supernode is the infrastructure engine that powers some of the world's top blockchain apps. It offers a one-line infrastructure API that does all the jobs of a single node and comes with the uptime, availability, and necessities to run a production application. The architecture uses dedicated distributed systems to power each node functionality and maintains real-time data correctness with a proprietary coordinator service.

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What is Infura?

Infura is another popular blockchain node provider offering APIs and developer tools for building on web3, focusing on Ethereum, Ethereum Layer 2s, Polygon, and IPFS.

Infura is owned by ConsenSys, a software development company founded by Joe Lubin, an original co-founder of Ethereum. ConsenSys also owns projects such as MetaMask, an Ethereum wallet, and Truffle, a blockchain development environment.

Infura uses a cloud architecture model, including syncing directly from object storage, a parity backend that runs in AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS), and a "Source of Truth" node that creates a snapshot of chain data and pushes it to an S3 bucket.

Next, we'll dive in deep on 9 key factors to consider when evaluating Alchemy and Inufra.

1. Supported Blockchains

When searching for a new node provider, companies should consider the networks supported by providers to ensure that they support their current app, the chains they want to expand to immediately, and the chains on the provider's roadmap.

Alchemy supports the following 8 blockchain networks:

• Ethereum

• Optimism

• Arbitrum

• Polygon PoS

• Starknet

• Solana

• Polygon zkEVM

• Base

• Astar (Polkadot)

Alchemy supports the following testnets:

• Goerli (Ethereum, Optimism, Arbitrum)

• Sepolia (Ethereum)

• Mumbai (Polygon)

Infura supports the following additional blockchains::

• Avalanche

• Aurora

• NEAR

• Palm

• Celo

• Linea

Alchemy and Infura both support multiple blockchains. Choosing one option versus the other should depend on whether either of them supports your primary and secondary expansion chains.

For example, Alchemy would be a good choice if you're looking for a Solana RPC provider, whereas Infura would be better if you want to build a dapp on Avalanche.

2. Node Latency

There are two kinds of blockchains latency. Block discovery latency is the amount of time a node provider uses to discover a new block, and request latency is the time difference between sending a blockchain request and receiving a response.

Alchemy engineers recently conducted a side-by-side comparison of Alchemy and Infura to measure request latency.

In this test, we queried eth_blockNumber and measured the time between the origination of the request and the receipt of the response on the Ethereum mainnet. We then aggregated and averaged this number across approximately 250 total queries, each at 15-minute intervals for Alchemy and Infura.

In our most recent test, August 12th, 2022 - August 15th, 2022, Alchemy averaged 39.96 ms, and Infura averaged 38.18 ms for the US East location.

While Infura's request latency is 4% faster than Alchemy's in this test, Alchemy's secondary infrastructure, such as synchronizing 30% of Ethereum nodes before confirming a block, offers web3 developers higher guarantees for data accuracy, node reliability, and scalability.

3. Data Accuracy

It is essential for node providers to provide users and dapps with accurate blockchain data, as incorrect information can negatively impact the web3 user experience:

1. Requests return different answers to the same question

2. Dapps retrieve incorrect transaction nonces

3. Users have a poor experience when tokens and NFTs appear incorrectly
   

In a recent data accuracy benchmarking experiment, we queried eth_blocknumber on the Ethereum mainnet over 1 million times in 24 hours and found that Infura returned 705 inaccurate block numbers, while Alchemy returned 0 inaccuracies.

Alchemy Supernode allows Alchemy's API to act as a single node, enabling 100% accuracy. This is achieved with an explicit consistency layer called Vox Nodi, a consensus algorithm that allows each node to vote on the data it receives, and the data is only returned to the user when it is accurate.

While Infura has 4% lower request latency than Alchemy, returning blockchain information faster at the expense of data accuracy can lead to a degraded web3 user experience.

4. Node Reliability

Node reliability is a measure of uptime, and it is an important category to compare when choosing a node provider because it directly impacts a dapp's ability to serve customers at any time of the day.

Alchemy and Infura both have highly reliable systems. However, when examining historical uptimes on each node provider's status page, we find that, on average, Alchemy's systems have better uptime. 

The node reliability status page shows the following comparisons for the Ethereum Mainnet from January 2022 to July 2022.

• January - Alchemy (100%) vs. Infura (100%)

• February - Alchemy (100%) vs. Infura (99.98%)

• March - Alchemy (100%) vs. Infura (99.97%)

• April - Alchemy (99.97%) vs. Infura (99.91%)

• May - Alchemy (100%) vs. Infura (100%)

• June - Alchemy (100%) vs. Infura (100%)

• July - Alchemy (99.92%) vs. Infura (99.99%)

In addition to overall uptime, there have been historical outages on Infura that have rendered many dapps including MetaMask wallets unusable, even though the main Ethereum network was operational.

In November 2020, Infura experienced a 7-hour outage that impacted millions of users due to a bug that affected their nodes running geth v1.9.9 and v1.9.13, two outdated versions of the geth node client. As recently as April 2022, Infura experienced a 3-hour outage due to an internal configuration change.

5. Pricing

Compared to Infura, Alchemy provides approximately 400% more free requests per month than Infura's free tier, does not cap Archive node access, and doesn't require users to add a credit card on file to access Layer 2s, and sidechains like Optimism, Polygon, and Arbitrum.

Alchemy and Infura both have four main pricing tiers: Free, Growth, Scale, and Enterprise. Here are the main pricing tiers for each company and a few key features:

Alchemy Pricing

Alchemy Free Tier ($0/month)

• 300 million compute units (CUs)/month

• 330 compute units per second (CUPS)

• All developer tools

• Enhanced APIs and SDK

• Full archive data

• Multichain mainnets and testnets

• No daily request limits

• 5 apps

• 24/7 Discord Support

Alchemy Growth Tier ($49/month)
In addition to everything included in Alchemy's free version, growth tier customers receive:

• 400 million compute units (CUs)/month

• Auto-scaling compute units at $1.2 per 1 million additional CUs

• Parity Trace and gETH debug

• Enhanced transaction propagation

• 2x higher throughput (660 CUPS)

• 15 apps

• 24/7 dedicated Discord support

Alchemy Scale Tier ($199/month billed annually)‍
For teams with big goals who want to move quickly, the new Scale tier provides Alchemy's best products and prices at the click of a button.

• 1.5 billion compute units (CUs)/month

• 3,000 compute units per second

• Auto-scaling compute units at $1 per 1 million additional CUs.

• Ability to purchase discounted additional CUs at $0.7 per 1 million on the annual plan.

• 30 apps

• 24/7 dedicated Discord support

Alchemy Enterprise Tier (Custom)

• Committed use discounts

• Custom SLAs

• Pay with crypto

• Custom throughput

• Unlimited apps

• 24/7 VIP support

Infura Pricing

Infura has four main pricing plans: Free, Developer, Team, and Growth.

Free ($0/month)

• Requests: 100,000 Requests/Day

• Number of Apps: 5

• Features: Ethereum Mainnet and Testnets, Community Support Forum, and other basic features

Developer ($50/month)

• Requests: 200,000 Requests/Day

• Number of Apps: 10

• Features: Everything in the Core plan plus Direct Customer Support, Archive Data (additional $250 per Month)

Team ($225/month)

• Requests: 1,000,000 Requests/Day

• Features: Everything in the Developer plan plus 24hr Support Response Time

Growth ($1000/month)

• Requests: 5,000,000 Requests/Day

• Features: Everything in the Team plan plus 8hr Support Response Time

Interestingly, builders who choose to provide their credit card information to Alchemy will receive an additional 1,000,000 compute units per month on the free tier.

6. Enhanced APIs

Besides node services, Alchemy and Infura provide additional developer tools and expanded API functionality to enable developers to build better technology with Token APIs, Trace APIs, WebSockets, and more. This section will review a few of the most important APIs and developer tools offered by Alchemy and Infura.

Alchemy's Enhanced APIs

• NFT API

• Web3 SDK

• Trace API

• Notify API (Webhooks)

• Subscription API (Websockets)

• Flashbots API (send private transactions)

• Token API

• Transfers API

• Transaction Receipts API

• Gas Manager API

• Bundler API

Alchemy vs. Infura NFT API Comparison

One expanded API offered by both Alchemy and Infura is an NFT API that gives developers access to new API endpoints for getting NFT data from the blockchain. Both NFT APIs offer helpful endpoints including:

• getNFTs

• isHolderOfCollection

• getNFTsForCollection

• getContractMetadata

• getNFTSales

Alchemy's NFT API takes it to the next level and currently supports the following additional NFT API endpoints not supported by Infura:

• getOwnersForCollection

• getNFTMetadata

• getOwnersForToken

• getOwnersForCollection

• getSpamContracts

• isSpamContracts

• reingestContract

• getFloorPrice

• computeRarity

• summarizeNFTAttributes

• reportSpam

It should be noted that Infura's NFT API is being deprecated on November 1, 2023 and will no longer be usable at that point. Infura's website recommends switching to a new provider, such as Alchemy!

Web3 SDK

Alchemy SDK is a drop-in replacement for Ethers.js that makes it simpler to build dapps and has been battle-tested in production by leading wallets and applications. It offers many advantages over ethers.js, including resilient event delivery and lowered failure rate.

Alchemy's Account Abstraction SDK

The Account Abstraction SDK can be used to simplify the interaction with account abstraction primitives (user operations and bundlers).

It's a complete solution that implements an EIP-1193 provider, handling gas estimation, signing the tx, and fetching paymaster data (if you use one) with one method call. If you're using eth_sendTransaction, the SDK converts that into a user operation for you and sends it along.

7. Developer Tools

Alchemy offers several developer tools to help developers build, debug, and ship products faster. These include:

• Alchemy AI - generate web3 code quickly to supercharge your development cycle

• Explorer - see historical request information to quickly identify patterns

• Mempool Visualizer - monitor the current status of confirmed, stuck, and dropped transactions

• Composer - troubleshoot RPC requests, replay failed transactions for easier debugging

• Debug Toolkit - scan recent requests and quickly detect errors while debugging

• Dashboard - get high-level analytics on your dapp performance

• Usage Analytics - get dapp’s usage over different timeframes, app versions, and individual methods. 

• Command Center - get high-level app health, requests per second, response times, and error rates

• User Insights - get geographic usage, traffic, and activity data, all without compromising user privacy or data security

• Alerts & Digests - get automated alerts of error points, and a daily digest reporting all key health metrics of your dapp

• Faucets - Alchemy provides multiple testnet faucets, including Sepolia faucet and Mumbai faucet

Infura offers developers an IPFS API and a transactions tool, ITX, to help transactions get included in a block by proactively updating transactions with competitive gas prices in case they are at risk of being dropped from the mempool.

8. User Experience

Alchemy aims to make it easy for developers to build in web3. The company offers several features to help improve the user experience, including a one-line infrastructure API, enhanced APIs, developer tools, and more.

Infura also focuses on providing a good user experience for developers. The company offers scalable systems, key NFT metadata, tools, and templates to help developers deliver a better user experience. Infura's multichain ecosystem also allows developers to choose a network that meets their requirements.

9. Customer Support

Alchemy and Infura offer user documentation, a 24/7 Discord channel, and educational content to help developers build dapps. However, some key differences include:

• VIP support for Enterprise customers

• Custom Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for Enterprise customers

• Alchemy's Road to Web3 developer course

• Hackathon Handbook for Beginners

• A repository of educational developer content

With Alchemy, support is available even to users on the free tier. In contrast, Infura only offers direct customer support to paying users, as seen on their pricing page.

What are the main differences between Alchemy and Infura?

The main differences between Alchemy and Infura are:

• Reliability - Alchemy is more reliable on average, with less significant outages compared to Infura

• Data accuracy - Alchemy offers 100% accuracy, while Infura does not

• Pricing - Alchemy provides a more robust free tier than Infura

• Enhanced APIs - Alchemy offers more enhanced APIs than Infura

• Customer support - Alchemy provides support for customers on all tiers

Which node provider is better - Alchemy or Infura?

Alchemy's blockchain development platform provides RPC nodes with more accurate and reliable blockchain data, and more web3 tools and APIs compared to Infura.

If both companies support your preferred chains, try using each platform to experience what it's like building on each platform, using their native tools, docs, and features to improve your building process.

With its extremely powerful free tier, developers can get started on Alchemy with zero risk. Begin using Alchemy now to gain access to an extensive set of developer tools available for developers.