Carbium vs Helius vs QuickNode

Solana Infrastructure Comparison for Developers and Enterprises

This page helps developers, teams, and institutions evaluate three major Solana infrastructure providers. Instead of marketing fluff, it presents measurable differences in pricing, reliability, and capabilities across the full stack.

Carbium is the only platform that combines enterprise-grade RPC, a swap and DEX API, gasless execution, Swiss-based infrastructure, and developer-focused pricing. Helius is focused on blockchain data. QuickNode is a multi-chain generalist with limited Solana rate limits. The comparison below reflects real product characteristics and fills a well known gap in transparent Solana infrastructure evaluations.

Feature Comparison Table

*Rate limits and SLAs reflect published information at time of writing **Uptime figures are rounded and represent long-term availability claims

What This Means for Developers

Carbium offers a unified Solana infrastructure stack, which removes the need to stitch multiple vendors together. If you are building a trading system, a Solana DApp, a payments platform, a data-heavy monitoring tool, or any product that needs both execution and analytics, Carbium consolidates RPC, swap API, gasless transactions, and analytics into one connected ecosystem.

Helius remains strong for high-level transaction enrichment, but its pricing is significantly higher and it lacks execution infrastructure. QuickNode is easy to integrate but becomes expensive when Solana workloads grow. Both competitors require developers to pay for RPC and swap execution from separate providers.

Carbium’s pricing is transparent, its rate limits are higher than QuickNode, and its infrastructure is operated from Switzerland for neutrality, performance, and compliance.

Key Differences Explained

Performance and Stability

Carbium and Helius both maintain high performance RPC with near perfect uptime. Carbium uses fully owned Swiss data centers which enable low latency access across European markets. QuickNode’s Solana performance is strong but operates within a shared multi-chain architecture that introduces variability under load.

Developer Experience

Helius leads in enhanced transaction parsing. Carbium’s upcoming Data API closes this gap by providing structured transaction and wallet level information in human readable format. QuickNode continues to focus on raw RPC and streaming.

Transparent Pricing

Carbium uses predictable usage based pricing without credit multipliers or hidden cost scaling. Helius feature gates gRPC and premium features behind higher tiers. QuickNode charges based on API credits which makes Solana workloads more expensive than other chains.

Integrated Stack

Carbium is the only platform that unifies RPC, DEX API, gasless swapping capability, MEV protection and a Swiss validator under a single ecosystem. This reduces tooling fragmentation for teams building wallets, trading systems, market data layers, or DeFi products.

Where Each Provider Fits Best

Carbium

Teams needing high performance RPC, predictable pricing, or unified swap plus data plus RPC toolchains. One-stop service for the full life-cycle of Solana transaction. Best suited for European and algorithmic trading workloads that benefit from low latency Swiss infrastructure.

Helius

Developers who require deep enriched transaction parsing or enterprise level analytics for large user bases.

QuickNode

Multi-chain teams with cross ecosystem needs that require a single provider for several chains at once.

FAQ

Q: Which provider offers the most complete Solana stack

A: Carbium provides the most unified infrastructure with RPC, DEX API, gasless swaps, MEV aware routing, and integrated validator services.

Q: Which service is best for high frequency bots

A: Carbium offers high RPS limits and stable gRPC plus WebSocket performance suitable for automated trading systems.

Q: Where can I talk with a technical expert?

A: You can request direct technical assistance through the Carbium support channels.