Choosing
Do you need a dedicated Ethereum RPC node?
Every other page asking this is published by somebody selling one, so every other page says yes. We measure the free endpoints instead, and here is what they actually did in the last 24 hours.
For most workloads, probably not
The best public Ethereum endpoint we measure — PublicNode — answered 99.99% of 37,901 calls with a median of 41 ms, and rate-limited none of them. A workload that fits inside that does not need a dedicated node, and paying for one buys headroom you are not currently using.
That conclusion is drawn from the measurements, not from an opinion about them. It changes when they do.
Who is throttling, and how much
A rate-limited response is one the provider refused because of volume, not one that failed. It is the single best signal that a shared endpoint is not enough for you.
| Provider | Rate limited | Share | Plan restricted |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1RPC | 6,441 | 83.3% | 1 |
| Merkle | 5,989 | 68.2% | 0 |
| Blast API | 283 | 0.8% | 1,094 |
| dRPC | 106 | 0.3% | 0 |
| Cloudflare | 34 | 0.1% | 0 |
| MEV Blocker | 1 | 0.0% | 0 |
1RPC refused 83% of our calls for volume — and we call at a deliberately conservative rate. An application would hit that far sooner.
When a dedicated node is the right answer
- You are being rate-limited. Not “you might be” — check. The table above is our own experience of these endpoints at a low request rate.
- You need archive depth nobody free serves. How far back each provider actually serves is measured rather than taken from a pricing page.
- Your latency is dominated by distance. A dedicated node in your region beats a faster shared one on another continent. The nearest measured endpoints will tell you whether that is your situation.
- You need a method the shared tier refuses. The method support matrix records which calls each provider actually answers, measured by making them.
We do not measure dedicated nodes. Every figure on this page comes from a shared or public endpoint. A provider's dedicated offering is a different product on different hardware and may behave nothing like this — which is rather the point of buying one. Treat these numbers as evidence about the free option you would otherwise use, and nothing more.
If you decide you need one
5 of the 9 providers we measure on Ethereum are commercial: Tenderly, dRPC, NodeReal, Blast API, Merkle. Most sell dedicated capacity alongside the shared endpoint we measure.
What to ask for, and what it actually fixes The full Ethereum ranking