Blockchains can support multiple software implementations, or clients, that connect users to a blockchain network. Clients are developed to be compatible with specific protocols and serve different purposes, for example, allowing for faster transactions or managing smart contracts in an advanced manner. Some clients can also be optimized for different consensus algorithms. You can learn which clients are available for the most popular protocols on Chainstack below.
Ethereum node can have one of the following implementations of the execution layer client:
Geth — the Go Ethereum implementation. It’s bigger in size and can be interacted with by using Geth JSON-RPC methods. To get the Geth client on your node, you must deploy a dedicated node in the full or archive mode.
Erigon — the Erigon implementation. It’s smaller in size and can be interacted with by using Erigon RPC methods. To get the Erigon client on your node, you must deploy a trader node in the archive mode or a dedicated node in the archive mode.
Polygon node can have one of the following client implementations:
Bor — the native Polygon client. It can be interacted with by using JSON-RPC methods. To get the Bor client on your trader or dedicated node, you must deploy it in the full mode.
Erigon — the Erigon implementation. It can be interacted with by using Erigon RPC methods. To get the Erigon client on your trader or dedicated node, you must deploy it in the archive mode.
BNB Smart Chain node can have one of the following client implementations:
Geth — the Go Ethereum implementation. It’s bigger in size and can be interacted with by using Geth JSON-RPC methods. To get the Geth client on your trader or dedicated node, you must deploy in the full mode.
Erigon — the Erigon implementation. It’s smaller in size and can be interacted with by using Erigon RPC methods. To get the Erigon client on your trader or dedicated node, you must deploy it in the archive mode.
Nitro is the official node for the Arbitrum protocol. It is a fully integrated, complete layer 2 optimistic rollup system that includes fraud proofs, the sequencer, token bridges, advanced calldata compression, and more. For available methods, see Chainstack Arbitrum API reference and the official Arbitrum documentation.
Solana — Solana’s official client is developed in Rust. JSON-RPC methods are available and can be found in the official Solana documentation. For JavaScript applications, use the @solana/web3.js library as a convenient interface for interacting with a Solana node using RPC methods.
Oasis-node is written in Go and serves as both a consensus and execution layer client. As it is EVM-compatible, it can be interacted with using the standard JSON-RPC API.
Pathfinder is the node implementation for the Starknet protocol. It supports version v0.2.1 of the Starknet JSON-RPC specification with some minor differences.
Bitcoin Core connects to the Bitcoin peer-to-peer network to download and validate blocks and transactions. See available JSON-RPC API methods in the Bitcoin Postman collection.
