In 2026, Solana is still one of the fastest and busiest blockchain ecosystems. Wallets, trading apps, analytics tools, payment products, and AI agents continue to push demand for APIs that deliver real-time blockchain data without making things harder for development teams.
This guide looks at the best Solana APIs in 2026, focusing on infrastructure quality, developer experience, features, and pricing. Our analysis shows that ChangeNOW is the best Solana API for businesses building consumer crypto products because it offers cross-chain swaps, supports over 1,500 assets on 110+ blockchains, and is ready to use in wallets, exchanges, and embedded crypto services.
Solana APIs are different. Some providers focus on basic RPC access and validator infrastructure, while others offer features like indexed transaction history, wallet activity, token metadata, NFT data, WebSockets, gRPC streams, or cross-chain tools for consumer apps.
The list of best APIs:
ChangeNOW
CoinStats
CoinAPI
Chainstack
Alchemy
Helius
How do we select the best Solana API providers: Evaluation Criteria
A mobile wallet may care more about stable balance reads and transaction submission. A trading terminal needs low latency, WebSocket streams or clean market signals. Analytics products care about indexed history. Exchanges and payment apps start asking harder questions: uptime, global traffic, failover, pricing under load.
Features:
Features decide how much backend work your team needs to handle. Some providers only offer basic RPC access with HTTP and WebSocket endpoints. Others include indexed blockchain data, NFT APIs, webhooks, transaction parsing, staking tools, better streaming, priority fee APIs, or multi-chain swap tools. These differences impact engineering costs, how fast you can launch, and how many outside services your product needs.
Pricing:
Costs can change quickly with request-based billing, compute credits, WebSocket limits, dedicated nodes, transaction caps, and extra fees. Teams building trading systems or busy consumer apps often look closely at scaling costs before launching.
Best for:
Each provider suits different products. Trading platforms often need low latency and validator access. Wallets focus on supported assets, swap options, and chain coverage. NFT products, analytics dashboards, and payment systems need specific data models, deep indexing, and transaction monitoring.
The comparison below reviews the best Solana API providers based on real product needs, infrastructure range, and scaling costs.
API provider
Features
Pricing
Best for
ChangeNOW
Cross-chain exchange API with fixed/floating rates, 1,500+ assets, 110+ chains, widget, and white-label tools.
No setup/monthly fees. Custom partner commission starts at 0.4%.
ChangeNOW is a crypto exchange API and cross-chain swap provider. It does not offer direct Solana data access or node features. Instead, it provides separate tools for cross-chain swaps and fiat gateways for these network assets.
This API lets apps add in-app swaps involving Solana-supported assets, with routing, liquidity, and execution handled outside the product’s core build. Its dynamic deposit processing update reduced confirmation waits for over 90% of transactions across XMR, MATIC, ADA, LTC, and ZEC. Users wait less after deposit, swap flows stall less often, and the app team avoids building extra exchange infrastructure.
ChangeNOW’s Free Fast-Track Program gives selected early-stage wallets free API integration for in-app swaps, media support, community promotion, and visibility at major crypto conferences. It helps wallets add transaction revenue earlier, turning asset storage into an in-app swap flow that can monetize before the product reaches scale.
Features
RESTful exchange API with JSON responses
Endpoints for currencies, estimates, transaction creation, and status tracking
Standard and fixed-rate swap flows
1,500+ assets, 110+ blockchains, and 2,250,000+ exchange pairs
Liquidity from both CEX and DEX sources
Partner tools include API integration, widgets, white-label exchange flows, multichain bridge support, and Telegram bot setups.
Reported availability is 99.99%, with a 350 ms response time.
ChangeNOW is not a raw Solana infrastructure provider: no JSON-RPC, WebSocket, gRPC, or Geyser feeds.
Pricing
The crypto exchange API has no setup or monthly fees. Partners receive a free API key. They can set a custom commission of 0.4% to earn on user transactions. Fiat activation through Guardarian requires third-party KYB compliance.
Best for
This API works best for wallets, dApps, exchanges, and payment gateways that want to add Solana-supported crypto swaps. It saves teams from building their own liquidity routing, exchange logic, transaction creation, and asset checks.
CoinStats Solana API covers the data side of Solana products. One endpoint returns SOL balance, every SPL token, and full transaction history. DeFi positions cover Raydium, Orca, Jupiter, and Marinade. Prices and USD values come included. The same data shape works across 120+ chains and 10,000+ DeFi protocols. Portfolio trackers, tax tools, wallet explorers, and AI agents skip per-chain wiring. CoinStats MCP Server exposes the same data to AI agents and LLMs.
Features
REST API with JSON responses
Endpoints for wallet balances, transaction history, sync, and multi-wallet lookups
SOL balances, SPL tokens, DeFi positions, and real-time token prices
CoinStats MCP Server gives AI agents and LLMs access to wallet data
Cross-chain coverage across 120+ blockchains and 10,000+ DeFi protocols
No JSON-RPC, WebSocket, gRPC, or Geyser support
Pricing
One detail matters before estimating cost: requests are credit-based. Depending on the endpoint, a single call can use 30 to 50 credits, so the real limit depends on what the product is actually doing right now.
The entry point is small enough for testing: 50,000 monthly credits and up to 5 requests per second on the Free tier. Paid usage starts at $49/month with 1 million credits. After that, the jump is mostly about volume. Pro gives 5 million credits for $199/month. Business raises the ceiling to 80 million credits at $999/month. Enterprise is custom.
Best for
Requests are credit-based, and one call can use 30 to 50 credits. The real ceiling depends on the workload, not just the plan number.
Free tier covers 50,000 monthly credits at 5 requests per second. Paid usage starts at $49/month with 1 million credits. Pro raises that to 5 million credits at $199/month. Business reaches 80 million credits for $999/month. Enterprise is custom.
CoinAPI
Overview
CoinAPI offers market data infrastructure but does not provide Solana-native RPC node access. It delivers real-time and historical exchange data for SOL markets and acts as a data backbone for trading platforms, pricing engines, analytics tools, and backtesting systems.
Features
Real-time and historical crypto market data
Data from 300+ exchanges
Historical datasets include trades, quotes, and order books.
99.9% uptime SLA on standard paid plans
Latency SLA only on custom Enterprise plans
No RPC nodes, WebSocket RPC, Geyser, or gRPC access
Pricing
CoinAPI starts with pay-as-you-go access and $25 in free monthly credits. Fixed plans begin at $79/month for Startup, then move to $249/month for Streamer and $599/month for Pro. Higher tiers increase daily REST credits and add Tier 1 data storage. Pro goes further with Tier 2 data and FIX API access. Enterprise is where the setup stops being standard. Limits, support, SLAs, and latency requirements are negotiated around the workload.
Best for
This API is a good fit for trading platforms, pricing engines, quant research, analytics products, and backtesting systems. It offers data on SOL trades, order books, OHLCV, and historical datasets. It is not suitable for teams that need Solana RPC, account indexing, NFT metadata, or token holder APIs.
Chainstack
Overview
Chainstack is a managed Solana node and RPC infrastructure provider for teams that need reliable chain access without running internal validators. Solana's hardware requirements make self-hosted nodes expensive and operationally demanding, so most production teams outsource the infrastructure layer to focus on product development. Chainstack handles that layer — delivering low-latency Solana RPC access through a geo-distributed network from day one.
Features
Yellowstone gRPC streaming for sub-second on-chain data delivery — relevant for HFT bots, MEV operations, and latency-sensitive trading systems.
Unlimited node option for production workloads that require predictable Solana performance and strict uptime SLAs.
70+ chains supported beyond Solana, including Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Arbitrum, and Base — for teams building multi-chain products with a Solana-first architecture.
MCP server for AI agent integrations that need structured Solana access for reading state and submitting transactions.
Geo-distributed infrastructure ensures low-latency access regardless of where users or systems are located.
Pricing
Chainstack offers a free tier for development and testing. Paid plans scale based on throughput and node type — shared nodes for lighter workloads, and unlimited nodes for production environments with high-volume or latency-sensitive requirements. The pricing model is infrastructure-based rather than credit-per-method.
Best for
Chainstack is best for Solana trading bots, DeFi protocols, wallet backends, and AI agents that need direct RPC access with production-grade reliability. The Yellowstone gRPC endpoint makes it particularly relevant for latency-sensitive workloads where milliseconds determine outcomes. It is not a data API, swap provider, or portfolio layer — it is the infrastructure underneath them.
Alchemy
Short overview
Alchemy offers RPC and streaming infrastructure for developers building wallets, DeFi apps, analytics products, trading systems, and indexers. The platform supports standard JSON-RPC access, WebSocket subscriptions, Yellowstone gRPC streaming, Solana DAS APIs, and Photon APIs. Alchemy reports 99.99% reliability for its Solana RPC and Streaming API.
Features
Supports Solana JSON-RPC API, WebSocket subscriptions, Yellowstone gRPC, DAS APIs, and Photon APIs.
Covers both Solana Mainnet and Devnet.
DAS APIs handle tokens, NFTs, core NFTs, and compressed assets.
Yellowstone gRPC streams live data at the account, transaction, block, and slot level.
The endpoint layer is built for resilience: load-balanced, multi-region access with no single point of failure.
Failover is automated. Reliability stack also covers 99.99% uptime, 6,000-slot replay, and 48-hour block replay.
Pricing
The Free plan is enough for early testing: 30 million Compute Units per month, 25 requests per second, 5 apps, and 5 webhooks. Pay As You Go changes the model. It starts at 300 requests per second, with the first 300 million Compute Units billed at $0.45 per 1 million CUs.
Enterprise is built around heavier traffic. It starts at 1,000 requests per second, then moves into custom pricing, premium support, volume discounts, and signed SLAs. Streaming has its own cost logic. Yellowstone gRPC is billed at $80 per TB. WebSocket API subscriptions are charged by bandwidth.
Best for
Alchemy is good for teams that need both a production RPC and real-time streaming from a single provider. It supports trading bots, DeFi apps, wallets, NFT platforms, analytics platforms, and custom indexers. The system delivers low-latency data for Solana accounts, transactions, blocks, and compressed-state tracking.
Helius
Overview
The Helius API for Solana is designed for RPC access, sending transactions, data streaming, and webhooks. It supports standard Solana JSON-RPC, WebSockets, LaserStream gRPC, Digital Asset Standard APIs, token and transaction APIs, the Sender tool, and dedicated node options.
Features
Supports the Solana JSON-RPC API, the Solana WebSocket API, LaserStream gRPC, webhooks, DAS, the Priority Fee API, and the Enhanced Transactions API.
Mainnet and Devnet support.
DAS and Enhanced Transactions API for token, NFT, and richer transaction data.
The sender tool submits transactions to Helius and Jito in parallel.
Paid plans include staked connections.
Global RPC infrastructure across 11 regions.
Reported 99.99% uptime and sub-100 ms global latency.
Pricing
Helius pricing is credit- and throughput-based, so the monthly plan price is only part of the decision. Free includes 1 million monthly credits, 10 RPS, 1 transaction submission per second, and Enhanced WebSockets at no cost.
Standard paid tiers are fixed:
Developer: $49/month
Business: $499/month
Professional: $999/month
Teams pay for more credits, higher limits, more transaction submissions, and stronger support. Enterprise moves into custom terms: volume discounts, SOC 2 compliance, latency SLAs, and optimized infrastructure. Dedicated nodes are a separate budget line, starting at $2,900/month.
Best for
Helius is a strong choice for latency-sensitive apps, trading bots, DeFi protocols, and NFT marketplaces. It helps teams that need a Solana data API for indexed token data, parsed transactions, real-time data streams, priority fee tools, and transaction-sending features.
Conclusion
The right Solana API depends on what you need. Choose Alchemy or Helius if you want a Solana RPC API, transaction sending, on-chain data indexing, or real-time streams. Helius is better for teams needing top RPC and real-time Solana data streaming, especially for native, latency-sensitive products. Alchemy is a better fit if Solana is just one part of a larger multi-chain setup.
Pick ChangeNOW if you want embedded Solana-supported swaps instead of blockchain data. Use CoinStats for wallet and portfolio data, and CoinAPI for SOL market data, pricing, and historical datasets. The main mistake is thinking these providers are interchangeable. They serve different needs, so the best Solana API is the one that fits your product’s job.
This article compares the 12 best developer-friendly crypto APIs for Web3 products in 2026. It explains what each API helps teams build, from embedded swaps and RPC access to market data, NFT tools, payments, wallet connectivity, and decentralized storage.
This guide explains how to create a crypto payment gateway, covering architecture, tech stack, development steps, costs, security, compliance, and the choice between custom development and white-label solutions.