The goal of our analysis is to determine the top free Ink RPC endpoint on mainnet for each continent as well as the best overall, globally. According to our infrastructure directory for Ink, there are at least 5 free and public endpoints for the mainnet on December 24, 2024 (list).
We are using our own (rpc) Performance Inspector which is a public web application. RPC providers change/expand their infrastructure and locations all the time which is why it might be useful for you to repeat test steps at your convenience here.
Please note that this performance comparison is not benchmarking. It would not make sense to use flood, chainbench (by Chainstack), k6 or another stress test / benchmarking tool for at least these reasons:
- The endpoints are being used by the public and suffocating them with requests might degrade the experience for other unsuspecting users;
- In most cases, the providers limit inbound traffic to public endpoints based on IP address and we would probably hit http429 errors very quickly.
Our Methodology
- We believe in WAGMI to mean the entire world. Therefore, we send simultaneous RPC requests from 27 locations on 6 continents. Our “probes” are in AWS and not “in” your laptop browser.
- For this analysis we configured the inspector to use the eth_blockNumber method and you can choose to use eth_getBalance instead.
- Another setting for our runs was the limit to “not more than 1 request per region per second” whereas the alternative is to let each probe run as fast as it gets the previous response.
- You can create an account with other providers like Alchemy and QuickNode to use their private endpoints to perform a similar analysis. We don’t record endpoints and our results contain just the domain names of the URLs which were included in the runs.
- Since there were 5 eligible providers and our inspector form accepts two at a time, we did 3 runs and combined their results for complete rankings. Although each run is for 2 providers, their computations are independent as each utilizes a separate instance of our RPC probe. See this Google Sheet or view “raw” individual results on the bottom of the page.
- Each pair of providers was run for 30 seconds and should have been measured for 30 requests from each region for a total of 810 measures. Requests are dispatched sequentially, one at a time. Latency duration is the sum of timings of milliseconds from the moment the request is sent until a success response gets back to us. Btw, we do a warmup request in each region which is omitted from the results.
- Additional info is in the FAQ on the bottom of the RPC Performance Inspector control form.
Eliminated Endpoints
- QuickNode blocked our probes from multiple regions due to the limited requests per second allowed in their free tier. The error message received was:
{"message":"15/second request limit reached - reduce calls per second or upgrade your account at quicknode.com","code":-32007}
The Top 4 Free Ink RPC Endpoints on Mainnet
Overall / Global Ranking
(27 AWS regions on December 24, 2024)
| No | Provider | Avg (ms) | Failed | 429 | Success | Duration (ms) |
| 1 | Tenderly | 107.40 | 0 | 0 | 810 | 86,998 |
| 2 | Inkonchain.com | 168.30 | 0 | 0 | 810 | 136,321 |
| 3 | Gelato Network | 195.74 | 0 | 0 | 810 | 158,549 |
| 4 | Alchemy.com | 295.60 | 0 | 0 | 810 | 239,435 |
Best Free Ink RPC Endpoints on mainnet for North America
(5 AWS regions on December 24, 2024)
| No | Provider | Avg (ms) | Failed | 429 | Success | Duration (ms) |
| 1 | Tenderly | 45.63 | 0 | 0 | 150 | 6,844 |
| 2 | Inkonchain.com | 108.11 | 0 | 0 | 150 | 16,216 |
| 3 | Alchemy.com | 146.66 | 0 | 0 | 150 | 21,999 |
| 4 | Gelato Network | 154.97 | 0 | 0 | 150 | 23,246 |
Best Free Ink RPC Endpoints on mainnet for South America
(1 AWS region on December 24, 2024)
| No | Provider | Avg (ms) | Failed | 429 | Success | Duration (ms) |
| 1 | Tenderly | 138.10 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 4,143 |
| 2 | Alchemy.com | 236.10 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 7,083 |
| 3 | Inkonchain.com | 241.00 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 7,230 |
| 4 | Gelato Network | 246.97 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 7,409 |
Best Free Ink RPC Endpoints on mainnet for Europe
(8 AWS regions on December 24, 2024)
| No | Provider | Avg (ms) | Failed | 429 | Success | Duration (ms) |
| 1 | Gelato Network | 37.47 | 0 | 0 | 240 | 8,992 |
| 2 | Tenderly | 39.10 | 0 | 0 | 240 | 9,383 |
| 3 | Inkonchain.com | 64.01 | 0 | 0 | 240 | 15,362 |
| 4 | Alchemy.com | 217.62 | 0 | 0 | 240 | 52,229 |
Best Free Ink RPC Endpoints on mainnet for the Middle East and Africa
(3 AWS regions on December 24, 2024)
| No | Provider | Avg (ms) | Failed | 429 | Success | Duration (ms) |
| 1 | Tenderly | 154.61 | 0 | 0 | 90 | 13,915 |
| 2 | Gelato Network | 168.66 | 0 | 0 | 90 | 15,179 |
| 3 | Inkonchain.com | 184.14 | 0 | 0 | 90 | 16,573 |
| 4 | Alchemy.com | 321.51 | 0 | 0 | 90 | 28,936 |
Best Free Ink RPC Endpoints on mainnet for Asia
(8 AWS regions on December 24, 2024)
| No | Provider | Avg (ms) | Failed | 429 | Success | Duration (ms) |
| 1 | Tenderly | 176.39 | 0 | 0 | 240 | 42,334 |
| 2 | Inkonchain.com | 258.18 | 0 | 0 | 240 | 61,964 |
| 3 | Gelato Network | 353.32 | 0 | 0 | 240 | 84,798 |
| 4 | Alchemy.com | 445.99 | 0 | 0 | 240 | 107,038 |
Best Free Ink RPC Endpoints on mainnet for Australia
(2 AWS regions on December 24, 2024)
| No | Provider | Avg (ms) | Failed | 429 | Success | Duration (ms) |
| 1 | Tenderly | 172.98 | 0 | 0 | 60 | 10,379 |
| 2 | Gelato Network | 315.42 | 0 | 0 | 60 | 18,925 |
| 3 | Inkonchain.com | 316.27 | 0 | 0 | 60 | 18,976 |
| 4 | Alchemy.com | 369.17 | 0 | 0 | 60 | 22,150 |
Overall Winner on December 24, 2024
Congratulations to Tenderly as the best free Ink RPC endpoint on mainnet (all endpoints).
Tenderly wins the best results for free Ink RPC in North America, South America, Middle East & Africa, Asia and Australia.
Gelato Network achieves best scores for free Ink RPC in Europe.
Complete data and rankings for each of the 27 locations are in this sheet.
The IP addresses show the following clouds & CDNs:
- CLOUDFLARENET: Alchemy, Gelato Network, Inkonchain.com and Tenderly.
- AMAZON-02: Quiknode.pro.
Raw Results
- Alchemy, Gelato Network – https://www.comparenodes.com/global-node-comparison/9666ec65-7483-42a5-9f9b-2f7a25d2b365/
- Inkonchain.com, Tenderly – https://www.comparenodes.com/global-node-comparison/089e9735-3b8e-4799-b3c6-fe9836c40979/
- Gelato Network, Quiknode.pro – https://www.comparenodes.com/global-node-comparison/8f7822a5-632e-474e-a7b5-fba9ff5a2dd5/
