Comparing the Industry’s Leading Web3 API Providers – Moralis vs. Alchemy vs. QuickNode

The dynamic Web3 growth area is dwelling to quite a few Web3 API suppliers, which convey their distinctive strengths and weaknesses to the desk. With this abundance of API choices, you would possibly discover it difficult to find out which APIs finest fit your growth wants. And whereas it’d seem to be most suppliers supply related merchandise, evaluating totally different Web3 APIs can typically be like evaluating apples to oranges.

So, out of all Web3 API suppliers, which is the most suitable choice? To seek out out, observe alongside on this information as we conduct a comparative evaluation of the Web3 business’s main API suppliers: Moralis, Alchemy, and QuickNode. As we transfer ahead, we’ll fastidiously analyze these three suppliers from an accessibility, efficiency, and price perspective.

All through this information, you’ll shortly uncover that Moralis supplies the business’s most complete Web3 APIs. Consequently, Moralis facilitates the business’s most accessible and simple developer expertise. So, should you instantly wish to begin utilizing Moralis’ top-tier Web3 APIs, click on the button under!

To study extra about why Moralis outperforms the competitors, be part of us under as we dive straight into our comparability of Web3 API suppliers! 

Comparing Web3 APIs: Moralis vs. Alchemy vs. QuickNode 

To focus on the similarities and, extra importantly, variations between Moralis, Alchemy, and QuickNode, we used every supplier’s respective Web3 APIs to question the crucial information for constructing a portfolio view of Vitalik Buterin’s ERC-20 tokens. On this case, a portfolio view consists of the identify, brand, steadiness, and value of all belongings in the pockets.

We opted for Vitalik’s pockets on account of its dimension and the intensive quantity of tokens it holds. This makes it the excellent candidate for testing the availability of spam classifications and metadata for big token units. This method additionally allowed us to systematically assess and examine the accessibility, effectivity, and cost-effectiveness of Moralis, Alchemy, and QuickNode when fetching the similar on-chain assets.

You’ll discover the outcomes of our assessments summarized in the two charts under:

By analyzing the charts above, you’ll discover that constructing a portfolio view of Vitalik’s ERC-20 tokens with Moralis calls for considerably fewer API calls and is extra cost-efficient than using each Alchemy and QuickNode.

With solely 18 calls at a complete price of $0.000882, we had been in a position to fetch the steadiness, metadata, and value of Vitalik’s ERC-20 tokens. Compared, the similar activity required 4963 calls at a complete value of $0.0049189 with Alchemy. And 4760 calls at a complete price of $0.0163091 with QuickNode.

Right here’s the information damaged down right into a desk: 

Why Does Moralis Outperform the Competitors? 

All Web3 APIs from Moralis are outcome-oriented and designed to attenuate the variety of calls it’s good to question blockchain information. We enrich all our API responses with transaction decodings, metadata, deal with labels, market information, and rather more from a number of sources.

To exemplify, when utilizing Moralis’ Token API and the token steadiness endpoint, you get the ERC-20 balances of a pockets – together with metadata and costs for every token – in a single response. This implies you solely must name one endpoint and use one supplier, simplifying your growth endeavors considerably.   

Compared, when utilizing suppliers like Alchemy and QuickNode, it’s essential to first fetch the token balances from the pockets. From there, it’s good to make particular person calls to question the metadata for every token individually. Furthermore, Alchemy and QuickNode’s API responses don’t embrace token costs, which means it’s essential to additionally contain a third-party supplier like CoinGecko or CoinMarketCap to get this information.

For this reason we solely wanted 18 calls to construct a portfolio view of Vitalik’s ERC-20s when working with Moralis. In the meantime, the similar activity demanded hundreds of calls and a number of suppliers when utilizing Alchemy or QuickNode.

To interrupt this down and make clear it additional, let’s study intimately the endpoints and responses from every supplier we utilized to render the portfolio view of Vitalik’s ERC-20 tokens.

Moralis – Endpoint Overview

With Moralis’ complete APIs, we solely want the Token Stability endpoint to fetch the token balances – together with metadata and costs – of any deal with: 

GET https://deep-index.moralis.io/api/v2.2/wallets/0xd8da6bf26964af9d7eed9e03e53415d37aa96045/tokens?chain=eth

Right here’s an instance of what the response would seem like: 

{
  "cursor": null,
  "page": 0,
  "page_size": 100,
  "result": [
    {
      "token_address": "0xdac17f958d2ee523a2206206994597c13d831ec7",
      "symbol": "USDT",
      "name": "Tether USD",
      "logo": "
      "thumbnail": "
      "decimals": 6,
      "balance": "517438540",
      "possible_spam": false,
      "verified_contract": true,
      "balance_formatted": "517.43854",
      "usd_price": 1.0006571224951815,
      "usd_price_24hr_percent_change": 0.08795941027880547,
      "usd_price_24hr_usd_change": 0.45543496836985303,
      "usd_value": 517.7785605045078,
      "native_token": false,
      "portfolio_percentage": 0
    },
    //...
  ]
} 

This response is enriched with an abundance of helpful information, together with the image, identify, brand, value, steadiness, value adjustments over time, and extra of every token. As such, when working with Moralis, you solely want a single endpoint to fetch all the required information for constructing a full ERC-20 portfolio view! 

Alchemy – Endpoints Overview

When utilizing Alchemy, we initially must name their getTokenBalances() endpoint, which is used to fetch a pockets’s token balances: 

alchemy.core.getTokenBalances(“0xd8dA6BF26964aF9D7eEd9e03E53415D37aA96045”)

In return, you’ll get a easy response containing an array of token balances, that includes solely the contract deal with and token steadiness in hexadecimal: 

"jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "result": {
    "address": "0x95222290dd7278aa3ddd389cc1e1d165cc4bafe5",
    "tokenBalances": [
      {
        "contractAddress": "0x0183736842388dcc6d41674082937684056a3904",
        "tokenBalance": "0x00000000000000000000000000000000000000001581113dffdc72c05ad16068"
      },
      //...
    ]
  }
}

What’s extra, other than offering a fairly restricted response, Alchemy moreover consists of some tokens with a steadiness equal to zero:

{
  "contractAddress": "0x007f252591528d326b2a73b366e5c6a0aa5128cc",
  "tokenBalance": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"
}

Together with tokens with a zero steadiness is kind of pointless, and it additional slows down the time it takes to fetch all of the tokens utilizing Alchemy’s API. 

As soon as now we have the steadiness, we now additionally must name Alchemy’s getTokenMetadata() endpoint individually for every particular person token. It will end in hundreds and hundreds of extra calls. Right here’s an instance of what the endpoint seems to be like: 

const contract = "0xa0b86991c6218b36c1d19d4a2e9eb0ce3606eb48";
alchemy.core.getTokenMetadata(contract).then(console.log);

In return, you’ll get a response containing a single token’s decimals, brand, identify, and image:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "result": {
    "decimals": 6,
    "logo": "
    "name": "USDC",
    "symbol": "USDC"
  }
}

Lastly, it’s good to leverage a third-party supplier, corresponding to CoinGecko or CoinMarketCap, to get the value of every token. That is one other bothersome step, leading to extra calls and a extra advanced workflow for you and your growth group!

QuickNode – Endpoints Overview

When utilizing QuickNode, we even have to start out by calling their getWalletTokenBalance endpoint to fetch the ERC-20 token balances of the pockets:

curl  
  -X POST 
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" 
  --data '{
    "id":67,
    "jsonrpc":"2.0",
    "method":"qn_getWalletTokenBalance",
    "params": [{
      "wallet": "0xd8dA6BF26964aF9D7eEd9e03E53415D37aA96045"
    }]
  }'

This returns an array of tokens that appears like this:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 67,
  "result": {
    "result": [
      {
        "name": "Namefi Service Credit",
        "symbol": "NFSC",
        "decimals": "18",
        "address": "0x0000000000c39a0f674c12a5e63eb8031b550b6f",
        "quantityIn": "100000000000000000000",
        "quantityOut": "20000000000000000000",
        "totalBalance": "80000000000000000000"
      },
      //...
    ]
  }
}

QuickNode’s response incorporates extra info than Alchemy’s, but it surely’s inadequate for constructing a complete portfolio view. As such, we then must name their getTokenMetadataByContractAddress endpoint for every particular person token to get extra info, which leads to hundreds of additional calls: 

curl  
  -X POST 
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" 
  --data '{
    "id":67,
    "jsonrpc":"2.0",
    "method":"qn_getTokenMetadataByContractAddress",
    "params": [{
      "contract": "0x4d224452801ACEd8B2F0aebE155379bb5D594381"
    }]
  }'

That is what the response seems to be like:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 67,
  "result": {
    "name": "Tether USD",
    "symbol": "USDT",
    "contractAddress": "0xdac17f958d2ee523a2206206994597c13d831ec7",
    "decimals": "6",
    "genesisBlock": null,
    "genesisTransaction": null
  }
}

What’s extra, you’ll discover that QuickNode’s metadata response doesn’t even embrace the token brand. That is one other essential part for constructing an ERC-20 token portfolio view. 

Lastly, very similar to when utilizing Alchemy, you additionally must leverage a third-party supplier like CoinGecko or CoinMarketCap to get token costs when working with QuickNode. As such, that is one other integration that complicates issues for you and your growth group.

Abstract: Full Comparability – Moralis vs. Alchemy vs. QuickNode

With Moralis’ outcome-oriented and use-case-specific Web3 APIs, we’re in a position to present a considerably extra accessible and simple developer expertise in comparison with Alchemy and QuickNode! 

Due to Moralis’ absolutely enriched API responses, you solely want a single endpoint and 18 API calls to get the token balances, metadata, costs, and rather more from Vitalik’s pockets. This considerably improves the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of Moralis’ Web3 APIs. You require fewer calls to question the information you want.

Compared, with Alchemy and QuickNode, the similar activity requires hundreds of calls and third-party involvement. Providers like CoinGecko or CoinMarketCap are crucial, turning this easy activity right into a bothersome and time-consuming endeavor.

Whereas this comparability makes use of Moralis’ Token API for example, it’s price noting that every one our APIs, together with the NFT API, Pockets API, and many others., are equally as complete and straightforward to make use of. As such, it doesn’t matter should you’re constructing a portfolio view of ERC-20 tokens, an NFT-based platform, a crypto value tracker, or every other Web3 mission; Moralis constantly outshines the competitors. 

So, if you wish to begin constructing Web3 tasks sooner and extra effectively, be sure that to enroll with Moralis!