Cryptocurrency is constantly evolving, constantly changing with new contenders for the number one spot changing all the time. That being said, there are currency two names that are dominating the conversation for the best blockchain; Ethereum and Solana.
Both of these cryptocurrencies have emerged as powerful blockchain platforms, offering great advantages and use cases.
As we move further into 2025, developers and investors are paying close attention to both blockchains to understand which one has the better advantages and most importantly, which one is going to come out on top.
What’s your name and where do you come from?
Ethereum was launched in 2015 by Vitalik Buterin and his team of developers. Ethereum was designed to be the best blockchain for contracts and decentralised applications (dApps). Upon its launch, Ethereum revolutionised the cryptocurrency landscape. Its network, developer ecosystem and widespread popularity amongst investors have made it the current most popular platform for DeFi (Decentralised Finance), NFT’s (Non-Fungible Tokens) and the leader in the latest and greatest in everything Web3.
Now onto Solana, which was created in 2020 by Anatoly Yakovenko. Solana was created with one purpose in mind, to take Ethereum’s model and improve on its flaws. Solana aimed to take the scalability issues that Ethereum had been experiencing by providing faster transaction speeds at a much lower cost to the everyday user. Due to its impressive mechanisms, Solana has become a popular choice with developers seeking a more efficient and cost effective alternative to Ethereum.
It’s all about the speed…
If you are only comparing the speed of both Ethereum and Solana, the latter wins every race, hands down.
Solana boasts an impressive 65,000 transactions per second (TPS), while it’s counterpart can only process around 30 transactions per second. However, this isn’t the end of the story. Ethereum recently underwent an upgrade to Ethereum 2.0. This introduced layer 2 solutions, such as Arbitrum, Optimism and zkSync which have massively increased Ethereum’s scalability.
Despite making these improvements in reaction to the increased competition from Solana, Ethereum still finds itself quite the way behind Solana in terms of speed. Developers that are searching for a solution that can provide them with near instantly transactions, the answer is clear. At the moment the choice is Solana, but that doesn’t mean that is going to be the case forever.
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So there’s speed, but what about the cost?
Since the introduction of Ethereum to the crypto space, one major drawback has always been the fees that it charges the user. In recent times, Ethereum’s gas fees have surged to a near unsustainable level, forcing out the smaller users and investors. While this was eased slightly with the introduction of Ethereum 2.0, the cost per transaction of Ethereum is still drastically higher than on Solana.
At the opposite end of the scale, Solana’s network allows it to maintain extremely low transaction fees. These fees, often costing less than 1p per transaction has encouraged many users and investors to make the jump from Ethereum over to Solana.
The big plus for Solana is that with the current network fees, the blockchain has become very appealing for applications that require frequent micro-transactions or are requiring a high amount of network traffic.
Okay, so which is safer?
One big advantage that Ethereum currently holds over Solana is in its security and decentralisation. Ethereum holds thousand of “nodes” across the world and is considered to be one of the most secure and decentralised blockchains on the planet. It has a strong, robust framework that has spent years earning trust from its developers and users.
Solana on the other hand has had to make some sacrifices in its network to offer the speed that it has become so well known for. Solana holds fewer validators and currently has a reliance on its Proof Of History (PoH) consensus mechanism. While it remains true that Solana is much faster than Ethereum, it also comes with being more open to potential centralisation risks.
It recent times, Solana has also had several network outages. This has led to concern regarding its reliability in situations that require high volumes of network traffic.
Who are the developers choosing?
Even today, Ethereum maintains a lead in the amount of developers using the ecosystem. The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is very widely supported, which allows developers to create and deploy smart contracts with ease. Boasting thousands of dApps, DeFi protocols and NFT market places, Ethereum has spent a great deal of time establishing itself at the core of the Web3 revolution.
While Solana is yet to reach Ethereum’s level, it has by now means given up. It currently trails Ethereum in terms of developer resources, however given the speed and the large difference in cost a large, new wave of developers are paying much closer attention to Solana, with some already making the switch and beginning development of their applications and games.
Good investments for the future?
Ethereum has been a dominating force in the DeFi space for quite some time and we don’t see that changing any time soon. They know where they fall behind Solana and are constantly making plans for upgrades to close that gap. They are aiming to make Ethereum a safer bet for the long-term investors with major upgrades, including solving the scalability issue. Make no mistake, Ethereum is a crypto powerhouse and that isn’t going to change any time soon.
Solana has experienced very rapid growth and are currently holding a small, technical advantage over the competition. By being able to offer developers a faster, cheaper blockchain it is making a claim to Ethereum’s crown. That being said, Solana must first address the concerns around the security of the blockchain and prove once and for all that it is capable of handling the high network usage without any further outages.
Crypto Analyst’s Final Thoughts.
Ethereum and Solana is a conversation that isn’t going to go away in a rush. They both have distinct strengths and weaknesses.
Currently, from an investors point of view it is Ethereum that represents a safer, long-term investments. That being said, if Solana continues upgrading its blockchain and finds solutions to some of the issues that we mentioned above, that could all change. Could Solana make Ethereum worthless? We don’t believe so. They are similar in many aspects of what they do, but there are plenty of ways that they are entirely different. Maybe this isn’t about one ruler of the blockchain, but about two cryptocurrencies, being great at what they do, offering its users the best of both worlds. Only time will tell.