Alchemy vs. Moralis - Which web3 API is best?

Written by John Williams

Reviewed by Logan Ross

Published on 2022-08-189 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 Moralis.

Alchemy and Moralis provide web3 developers with tools and services to create decentralized applications. This article will compare Alchemy and Moralis across multiple categories to help you choose the best web3 developer platform and tools for your web3 developer stack.

Alchemy and Moralis will be compared across nine categories:

1. Supported Blockchains

2. Node Latency

3. Data Accuracy

4. Node Reliability

5. Enhanced APIs

6. Developer Tools

7. User Experience

8. Customer Support

9. Pricing
   

If you're looking for an alternative to Moralis, this article will compare and contrast the differences between two leading developer platforms.

Alchemy vs. Moralis Comparison

Blockchain development platforms like Alchemy and Moralis play an essential role in the lifecycle of web3 startups. Choosing the right platform will enable teams to reduce overhead, ship faster, and scale bigger.

What is Alchemy?

Alchemy is one of the best web3 node providers. It offers builders an extensive developer platform known for extensive developer tooling, robust APIs, and a new software development kit (SDK) to make building dapps faster, easier, and more secure.

Alchemy was founded by two Stanford University graduates, Nikil Viswanathan and Joe Lau, in 2017. Alchemy is a Series C-backed blockchain infrastructure startup with investors including Pantera, Coatue, and a16z, and includes top clients such as OpenSea, Trust Wallet, and Dapper Labs.

What is Moralis?

Moralis is a web3 development platform that offers various APIs and an SDK to assist builders in creating dapps. While they previously provided RPC nodes for their customers, they have recently deprecated this service to concentrate on their core products.

Founded by YouTube influencers and web3 educators Ivan Liljeqvist and Filip Martinsson, Moralis closed their seed funding in October 2021 and their Series A funding in May 2022. Investors in Moralis include EQT Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, and Fabric Ventures.

1. Supported Blockchains

Alchemy supports the following blockchains:

• 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)

Moralis supports the following blockchains:

• Ethereum

• Polygon

• Avalanche

• BNB Chain

• Solana

• Fantom

• CRONOS

• Arbirum

• Palm

• Aptos

Alchemy and Moralis 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, if you're looking for a Solana RPC provider, Alchemy would be a good choice, whereas Moralis would be better if you want to build a dapp on the BNB chain.

2. Data Accuracy

In web3, data accuracy is a concern as it can result in users and dapps receiving incorrect information, leading to negative user experiences. This is often due to load balancers querying nodes with inconsistent information, resulting in poor data accuracy.

Data Accuracy Benchmark Test: Alchemy vs. Moralis

According to a data accuracy benchmark test that queried JSON RPC method eth_blockNumber 1,072,000 times over 24 hours on 4 node providers - Alchemy, Infura, Quicknode, and Moralis - found that Moralis had the lowest score, with 819 inconsistent blocks. Although this represents a small fraction of over a million, each inconsistency has the potential to frustrate an end user.

Over the same 24-hour span and 1,072,000 transactions, Alchemy had 0 inconsistent blocks.

With Supernode, Alchemy APIs act as a single node, which makes their 100% data accuracy unmatched in the blockchain node provider space. This is achieved through a secondary infrastructure that runs an additional consensus layer across all nodes, Vox Nodi, to ensure correct information.

3. Node Reliability

Node reliability, or uptime, is an important metric to compare between two blockchain developer platforms because it directly impacts a builder's ability to write and read data from the blockchain, or use tools during the development workflow.

Here is Alchemy's historical reliability for the first seven months of 2022:

• January - Alchemy (100%)

• February - Alchemy (100%)

• March - Alchemy (100%)

• April - Alchemy (99.97%)

• May - Alchemy (100%)

• June - Alchemy (100%)

• July - Alchemy (99.92%)

Moralis' status page does not share historical reliability metrics. When node providers go down, even for a minute, it can cost projects revenue and churned users (i.e., users who abandon their application).

Since Moralis' deprecated their Speedy Node service on July 11th, 2022, and removed access to archive node data, Alchemy is the only choice for those in need of RPC.

4. Node Latency

The two main types of web3 node latency are block discovery latency - the time it takes to discover a new block, and request latency - the time between sending an RPC request and receiving a response.

Node Latency Test: Alchemy vs. Chainstack

In this test, we measured the time between the origination of the request and the receipt of the response on the Ethereum mainnet by querying eth_blockNumber.

We ran this query every 15 minutes, aggregated the results, and averaged the number. In our most recent test between August 10th, 2022, - August 17th, 2022, Alchemy averaged 38.72 ms, and the node provider Moralis recommends, Chainstack, averaged 426.28. ms for the US East location.

Even after taking Alchemy's secondary infrastructure, which provides additional data accuracy and reliability guarantees, Alchemy is 10x more performant than Moralis' recommended node provider.

5. Pricing

Pricing plays a pivotal role when selecting a web3 node provider. Let's delve into the cost structures of both Alchemy and Moralis to determine which offers the best value.

Alchemy Pricing

Alchemy offers four value-packed plans, each tailored to meet the specific needs of developers and enterprises. These plans provide targeted solutions that perfectly cater to the unique requirements of each user group.

Free ($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

Growth ($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

Scale ($199/month billed annually and $289/month billed monthly)

For teams with big goals who want to move quickly, 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

Enterprise (Custom Pricing)

For enterprise-scale web3 applications like OpenSea, GMX, and 0x, Alchemy’s enterprise tier offers customized scale, throughput, and support to manage the largest dapps in web3.

• Committed use discounts

• Custom SLAs

• Pay with crypto

• Custom throughput

• Unlimited apps

• 24/7 VIP support

Additionally, large web2 corporations such as Shopify and Adobe opt for Alchemy to fulfill their scalability, dependability, and low latency demands, for their millions of users.

Moralis Pricing

There are four pricing tiers in Moralis’s node service: Starter, Pro, Business, and Enterprise.

Starter ($0/month)

• 4000 CU/day

• 25 CUs/second

• Community support
  

Pro ($50/month)

• 15 million CUs/month

• 60 CUs/second

• Request auto-scaling

Business ($249/month)

• 30 million CUs/month

• 100 CUs/second

• Dedicated account manager

Enterprise (Custom Pricing)

• Over 50 million CUs/month

• 200+ CUs/second

• SLAs

• Premium onboarding and support

Compute Unit Comparison

Because no documentation is available that shows the number of compute units (CUs) for requests sent through Moralis to compare to Alchemy Compute Units (CUs), we cannot directly compare how much compute is given away in Moralis' free tier.

However, with approximately 12 million requests for Alchemy's free tier and 120,000 CUs for Moralis, even if every Moralis API method, both cheap and expensive, is priced at one CU, Alchemy's free tier would still be the better option.

6. Enhanced APIs

Besides node provider services, Alchemy offers enhanced API endpoints, and since Moralis deprecated their Speedy Node service, they have continued to focus efforts on developing web3 APIs. This section will compare each company's additional APIs beyond the standard endpoints supported by ethers.js.

Alchemy’s Enhanced APIs

Alchemy has many enhanced APIs, making the development process easier and more efficient for web3 developers. Here are some of Alchemy’s APIs:

• NFT API - instantly find, verify, and display any NFT across most major blockchains.

• Trace API - get deeper insights into how transactions interact with smart contracts and wallets.

• Notify API - use webhooks for Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism, and Arbitrum, including wallet activity and NFT webhooks.

• Subscription API - get full transaction receipts for all new pending transactions instead of just the transaction hash.

• Transfers API - get the transaction history for a specific address over any block range.

• Token Metadata API - get token metadata for a given contract address.

• Token Balances API - get token balances for a user address given a list of token contracts.

• Token Allowance API - returns the amount of a given token that a spender is allowed to withdraw from the token owner.

• Transaction Receipts API - get the full transaction receipt for each transaction contained within a specified block

• Debug API - run a transaction in the same manner as it was executed on the network, replaying each transaction along the way.

Moralis’s Enhanced APIs

Moralis has several useful APIs listed on its website and in its documentation. Some of their most frequently used APIs include:

• NFT API - powers dapps and web3 services.

• EVM API - enables developers to query any data from any EVM chain.

• Auth API - enables anyone to integrate web3 wallet authentication.

• Solana API - query data from the Solana blockchain, such as fetching user token balances, fetching NFT metadata, and more.

• Metaverse SDK - integrate dapps and games with like XBOX, Unity, iOS, and Android.

• Price API - real-time token prices.

• Wallet API - an API designed for building wallets.

• Block API - search, filter, and fetch blocks and its contents.

• Market Data API - trending NFT collections and coins.

Overall, Alchemy offers a more comprehensive set of API endpoints for web3 developers. Still, Moralis has a unique metaverse SDK made explicitly for developers building blockchain games for XBOX, Unity, iOS, or Android.

Alchemy NFT API vs. Moralis NFT API

Because both Alchemy and Moralis offer an NFT API, let's compare the comprehensiveness of the API endpoints.

Alchemy NFT API Endpoints

These are the NFT API endpoints supported by Alchemy across one or more blockchains, including Ethereum and Polygon, and their testnets.

• getNFTs

• getFloorPrice

• getNFTSales

• computeRarity

• getNFTMetadata

• getNFTMetadataBatch

• getContractMetadata

• searchContractMetadata

• getContractsForOwner

• getNFTsForCollection

• getOwnersForToken

• getOwnersForCollection

• getSpamContracts

• isSpamContracts

• reingestContract

• isHolderOfCollection

• reportSpam

• summarizeNFTAttributes

An NFT API endpoint unique to Alchemy includes endpoints for getting and filtering spam NFTs.

All Alchemy NFT API endpoints are also supported in the Alchemy web3 SDK.

Moralis NFT API Endpoints

These are the NFT API endpoints supported by Moralis:

• getNFTTransfersByBlock

• getNFTs

• getNFTTransfers

• getNFTsForContract

• getNFTTrades

• getNFTLowestPrice

• searchNFTs

• getNFTTransfersFromToBlock

• getAllTokenIds

• getContractNFTTransfers

• getNFTOwners

• getNFTMetadata

• reSyncMetadata

• syncNFTContract

• getTokenIdMetadata

• getTokenIdOwners

• getWalletTokenIdTransfers

Moralis has more NFT API endpoints than Alchemy and has additional support for BNB Chain, Avalanche, Fantom, and CRONOS. Depending on your  application, these factors may be important.

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

Better tools enable builders to create better applications. In addition to core API products, Alchemy offers the following web3 developer tools:

• 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

Besides Moralis' APIs and metaverse SDK, Moralis offers a few plugins made by "Moralis experts," such as:

• Pinata IPFS - enables interaction with the Pinata IPFS API.

• Covalent - provides access to data from different blockchains.

• Rarible NFT Tools - allows users to lazy mint NFTs and put them up for sale without paying gas fees.

• OpenSea - integrates the full power of OpenSea into Moralis Dapps.

• 1inch - integrates the DeFi/DEX aggregator 1inch to any project that uses Moralis.

• Fiat Onramp (By Onramper) -  enables a quick fiat to crypto swap.

8. User Experience

When selecting Alchemy or Moralis, builders should consider the developer's experience building with each platform and tool. Evaluation points should include the following:

• User interface design

• Documentation

• Guides and tutorials

• Support

Alchemy and Moralis are both built by developers for developers, which enables them to understand what builders need to create incredible applications.

Both companies offer extensive documentation, written guides, video tutorials, and educational resources to help new, transitioning, and advanced web3 devs. Because Ivan on Tech (Ivan Liljeqvist) is a web3 YouTube influencer, Moralis has a larger catalog of video tutorial content.

9. Customer Support

Customer support is an essential consideration because if you get stuck building dapps, you want to have some guarantees that you will be able to get answers to your questions quickly and comprehensively.

Alchemy has excellent customer support through multiple channels: 

• Documentation

• Support tickets

• Discord support

• Discussion forum

• Customer Product Engineers (CPEs)

• Slack support

• Telegram support (enterprise)

Moralis also has high-quality customer support through the following channels:

• Moralis forum

• Documentation

• Discord support

• Senior account manager (business tier)

• technical account manager (enterprise)

• Dedicated Live Support Channel (enterprise)

Alchemy vs. Moralis: Which platform is better?

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

The main difference between Alchemy and Moralis is that Alchemy is a blockchain node provider with an expansive catalog of APIs and support for a web3 SDK, and Moralis offers a similar suite of APIs with an NFT API that supports more EVM chains, a unique metaverse gaming SDK, plugins, and does not offer RPC node support.

Choosing between Alchemy and Moralis for your infrastructure, web3 API, or developer tooling needs should be decided based on your needs. Alchemy is the right choice if you're looking for an all-in-one solution that supports the most popular blockchains and is trusted by the largest dapps in web3.

Moralis is a good option if you want to build using a Metaverse SDK or need support for a unique chain like CRONOS or Fantom.

Alchemy's free tier is the most robust place to start if you're just getting an app off the ground. Then, when your app finds product-market fit, you can instantly scale your product on the platform you used to refine your skills.