Alchemy vs QuickNode: Blockchain RPC Providers Compared

Overview

Alchemy and QuickNode are the two largest managed RPC endpoint providers for blockchain developers. Both offer hosted node infrastructure that abstracts away the complexity of running full nodes, but they differ in pricing models, chain coverage, developer tooling, and performance characteristics. Choosing the right provider depends on which chains you target, what supplementary APIs you need, and how much you are willing to pay at scale.

The following table summarizes the key differences between Alchemy and QuickNode across the dimensions that matter most to developers evaluating blockchain infrastructure providers.

For a broader look at multi-chain providers beyond these two, see our multi-chain RPC provider comparison.

Pricing Comparison

Alchemy and QuickNode use fundamentally different pricing models. Alchemy shifted to a pure pay-as-you-go system priced per compute unit (CU), while QuickNode uses tiered monthly subscriptions with included API credit allowances. The cost-effective choice depends on your usage volume.

Alchemy's pay-as-you-go model charges approximately $0.45 per million CUs for the first 300 million, dropping to around $0.40 per million CUs beyond that threshold. This means costs scale precisely with usage, with no wasted capacity on quiet months. QuickNode's subscription tiers include a fixed monthly credit allowance. If you consistently use your full allocation, the per-request cost is predictable. If usage fluctuates significantly, you may overpay during low-activity periods.

QuickNode offers roughly 15% discounts on annual billing. Alchemy provides volume discounts for enterprise customers but does not publicly list annual subscription pricing since it removed subscription tiers.

Supported Blockchains

Both providers have expanded aggressively beyond Ethereum. Alchemy reports support for over 100 blockchains, including recent additions like Stellar, Berachain, and ZetaChain. QuickNode lists 78+ chains and 130+ networks, covering Ethereum, Solana, Base, Arbitrum, Polygon, TRON, Aptos, Polkadot, and XRP Ledger.

Chain counts alone do not tell the full story. The depth of tooling on each chain varies. Alchemy's enhanced APIs (NFT API, Token API, Transfers API) are deepest on Ethereum and major EVM-compatible L2s. QuickNode provides more consistent baseline RPC coverage across non-EVM chains like Solana, TRON, and Bitcoin.

Both providers support Ethereum testnets (Sepolia, Holesky) and Bitcoin testnets. Alchemy also supports Bitcoin Signet and Testnet4. QuickNode supports Bitcoin mainnet and Testnet4 with additional indexed data through its Blockbook integration.

Developer Tooling

Beyond raw RPC access, both providers offer supplementary products that shape the developer experience. Their tooling philosophies differ: Alchemy builds vertically integrated products, while QuickNode emphasizes a composable ecosystem with its Marketplace.

Alchemy: Enhanced APIs and Account Kit

Alchemy's Enhanced APIs abstract common on-chain data queries into single API calls. The NFT API fetches metadata, ownership, transfers, floor prices, and spam detection for both ERC-721 and ERC-1155 tokens. The Token API provides balance lookups and metadata for ERC-20 tokens. The Transfers API returns full transaction history for any address in a single request, eliminating the need to scan blocks manually.

Alchemy Notify provides webhook notifications for address activity, mined transactions, dropped transactions, and gas price changes. Custom Webhooks extend this with programmable filters for multi-chain applications.

Account Kit is Alchemy's smart wallet SDK. It enables email and social login onboarding, gas-sponsored transactions via paymasters, and programmable wallet policies. Account Kit targets dApp developers building consumer-facing products where traditional wallet UX (seed phrases, manual gas management) creates friction.

Alchemy previously offered a hosted Subgraphs product (acquired from Satsuma) for indexed blockchain data queries, but it was sunset in December 2025. Developers needing subgraph functionality are directed to migrate to third-party providers like Goldsky.

QuickNode: Streams, Functions, and the Marketplace

QuickNode Streams delivers real-time blockchain data to your infrastructure through configurable pipelines. You define filters to capture specific events (contract emissions, token transfers, block headers) and Streams pushes matching data to a destination of your choice: a webhook endpoint, a cloud function, or a database.

QuickNode Functions is a serverless execution environment that processes data arriving from Streams. You write JavaScript or TypeScript functions that filter, transform, or enrich blockchain data before it reaches your application. Streams and Functions together form a data pipeline that replaces custom indexer infrastructure. Both products include a free monthly allocation on all paid plans.

The QuickNode Marketplace is an add-on ecosystem where third-party providers publish extensions that integrate directly into your QuickNode dashboard. Add-ons from providers like Covalent extend QuickNode's capabilities with specialized data products. This approach gives developers modular tooling without vendor lock-in on any single product.

Bitcoin Developer Support

For developers building on Bitcoin, QuickNode offers significantly deeper tooling. Its Bitcoin RPC service exposes the full Bitcoin Core JSON-RPC over HTTPS and WSS on both mainnet and Testnet4. Beyond standard RPC methods like getblock, getrawtransaction, and sendrawtransaction, QuickNode provides Blockbook integration for indexed address balances, UTXO lookups, and transaction history over REST and WebSocket. The Ordinals and Runes API supports developers building on Bitcoin's emerging token standards.

Alchemy added Bitcoin RPC support more recently. Its Bitcoin offering includes standard JSON-RPC passthrough to full nodes with txindex enabled, covering mainnet, testnet, Testnet4, and Signet. However, Alchemy's Bitcoin support does not include WebSockets, webhooks, or the enhanced APIs (Transfers, NFT, Token) that make its EVM tooling distinctive. For Bitcoin-specific work, QuickNode's deeper indexing and event-driven features provide a more complete development experience.

For a detailed comparison of Bitcoin-specific RPC providers, see our Bitcoin RPC provider comparison and Bitcoin API comparison. Developers building on Bitcoin's second layer can also explore Spark, which provides a layer 2 for fast, low-cost Bitcoin and stablecoin transfers without requiring traditional RPC infrastructure.

EVM Developer Experience

For Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains, Alchemy holds a clear advantage in developer ergonomics. Its Enhanced APIs reduce the number of RPC calls required for common operations: fetching all token balances for an address, retrieving NFT metadata with spam filtering, or pulling complete transfer histories. These abstractions save development time and reduce compute costs compared to making multiple raw RPC calls.

Alchemy's SDK (available for JavaScript/TypeScript) wraps these APIs into typed namespaces (nft, notify, transact) with built-in retry logic and pagination. QuickNode's SDK is more RPC-focused, providing a clean interface to standard JSON-RPC methods but relying on Marketplace add-ons for higher-level data access.

For account abstraction and smart wallet development, Alchemy's Account Kit is a differentiator that QuickNode does not match with a first-party product. Developers building consumer-facing dApps on Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, or Polygon will find Alchemy's vertical integration reduces the number of third-party dependencies.

Performance and Reliability

Both providers publish benchmark data, though each vendor's numbers naturally favor its own infrastructure. Independent verification of these claims is limited, so treat them as directional rather than definitive.

On EVM chains, Alchemy published benchmark results from August 2026 showing 15.66 ms average latency and 49.91 ms p95 latency on Base, compared to QuickNode's 56.16 ms average and 234.18 ms p95 in the same test. Alchemy also reported lower average and p50 latency across Ethereum, Optimism, and Arbitrum in a September 2026 snapshot.

On Solana, QuickNode published an 82-day analysis (July to October 2026) using the Solana Foundation's open-source latency monitor across 29 geographic locations. QuickNode recorded lower latency in 91.4% of 11,136 head-to-head measurements. getSlot p50 was 1.9 ms for QuickNode versus 20.5 ms for Alchemy.

The pattern is consistent: Alchemy optimizes heavily for EVM performance, while QuickNode invests more in non-EVM chains like Solana and Bitcoin. For production workloads, run your own latency tests against the specific chains, methods, and geographic regions your application requires.

Multi-Chain Development

Developers building multi-chain applications need providers that handle cross-chain queries through a unified interface. Both Alchemy and QuickNode support multi-chain access from a single account, but their approaches differ.

Alchemy provides a single API key that works across all supported chains, with chain-specific endpoints differentiated by URL path. Its Enhanced APIs (NFT, Token, Transfers) work consistently across EVM chains, so code written for Ethereum works on Arbitrum or Base with a URL change. The limitation is that these enhanced APIs do not extend to non-EVM chains: Bitcoin, Solana, and other non-EVM networks get standard RPC only.

QuickNode creates separate endpoints per chain, each with its own configuration. This gives more granular control (you can assign different rate limits or add-ons per chain) but adds management overhead. QuickNode's Streams product works across chains, enabling unified data pipelines that aggregate events from multiple networks. For teams building cross-chain applications, Streams provides a single event ingestion layer regardless of source chain.

How to Choose

The right provider depends on your primary blockchain target, the depth of tooling you need, and your pricing preferences.

Choose Alchemy if you are building primarily on Ethereum and EVM L2s, need Enhanced APIs for NFT or token data, want Account Kit for smart wallet integration, or prefer pure pay-as-you-go pricing without monthly commitments. Alchemy's EVM latency benchmarks and vertical tooling make it the stronger choice for Ethereum-native applications.

Choose QuickNode if you need deep Bitcoin RPC support (Blockbook indexing, Ordinals API), are building on Solana or other non-EVM chains, want event-driven data pipelines (Streams + Functions), or prefer a composable tooling approach through the Marketplace. QuickNode's Bitcoin and Solana performance and its broader non-EVM coverage make it better suited for multi-chain or Bitcoin-focused development.

For enterprise workloads, both offer custom pricing, dedicated infrastructure, and contractual SLAs. QuickNode's enterprise tier advertises 99.99% uptime commitments and includes dedicated solutions architects. Alchemy's enterprise offering includes custom compute unit pricing and priority support. Request quotes from both and compare total cost of ownership for your specific usage patterns.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Alchemy or QuickNode better for beginners?

Alchemy's free tier (30 million compute units per month) is more generous for prototyping on EVM chains, and its Enhanced APIs reduce the amount of code needed for common tasks. QuickNode's free tier is more limited but provides access to a broader set of chains. For a developer learning Ethereum, Alchemy's documentation and SDK make it slightly easier to get started. For Solana or Bitcoin development, QuickNode provides better out-of-the-box support.

Does Alchemy support Bitcoin?

Yes. Alchemy added Bitcoin RPC support, covering mainnet, testnet, Testnet4, and Signet. The offering provides standard Bitcoin Core JSON-RPC passthrough with txindex enabled. However, Alchemy's Bitcoin support is limited compared to its EVM tooling: it does not include WebSockets, webhooks, or enhanced APIs for Bitcoin. QuickNode offers deeper Bitcoin support with Blockbook indexing, Ordinals and Runes APIs, and WebSocket subscriptions.

Which provider has better uptime?

Both providers target 99.9% uptime on standard paid plans. QuickNode's enterprise tier offers contractual 99.99% uptime commitments with service credits for misses. Alchemy provides 99.9% SLAs across its plans. Both hold SOC 2 Type II certification, and QuickNode additionally holds ISO 27001. In practice, both maintain high availability, and the difference between 99.9% (8.7 hours of downtime per year) and 99.99% (52 minutes per year) matters primarily for mission-critical production workloads.

Can I use both Alchemy and QuickNode together?

Yes, and many production applications do. A common pattern is using Alchemy as the primary provider for EVM chains (taking advantage of Enhanced APIs) and QuickNode for Bitcoin or Solana (where its tooling is stronger). You can also configure one provider as a fallback for the other to improve resilience. Most blockchain SDKs and frameworks support multiple RPC endpoints, making provider redundancy straightforward to implement.

What are QuickNode Streams and Functions?

Streams is QuickNode's real-time data delivery product. It pushes blockchain events (transactions, logs, block headers) to your infrastructure based on configurable filters. Functions is a serverless compute layer that processes Streams data before it reaches your application: filtering, transforming, or enriching events in JavaScript or TypeScript. Together, they replace custom blockchain indexer infrastructure. Both products include a free monthly allocation on all QuickNode paid plans.

What happened to Alchemy Subgraphs?

Alchemy acquired Satsuma to build a hosted Subgraphs product for indexed blockchain data queries. The service was sunset in December 2025. Developers who relied on Alchemy Subgraphs are directed to migrate to Goldsky or other third-party subgraph hosting providers. This leaves Alchemy without a first-party indexing product, though its Enhanced APIs cover many of the same use cases for common queries.

How does pricing compare at high volumes?

At high volumes, Alchemy's pay-as-you-go model scales linearly, with a discount kicking in above 300 million compute units per month (from $0.45 to approximately $0.40 per million CUs). QuickNode's tiered plans cap at the $999/month Business tier before requiring enterprise pricing. For very high volumes, both providers negotiate custom rates. The more cost-effective option depends on your specific request mix, since different RPC methods consume different amounts of compute units.

This tool is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or technical advice. Pricing, features, supported chains, and performance benchmarks change frequently. Benchmark data cited comes from vendor-published reports and may not reflect independent testing. Always verify current pricing and features on each provider's website before making infrastructure decisions.