TON: choosing v2 or v3

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TON pricing is the same for full, archive, v2, v3

There's no difference between a full node an archive node in data availability or pricing.
All data is always available and all node requests are consumed as 1 request unit.

Check out our TON API reference, which has both v2 and v3 methods.

The question is—which one should you choose for your project?

As a reminder:

• TON API v2 endpoints serve real-time requests. TON API v2 requests serve off a node.
• TON API v3 endpoints serve indexed requests. TON API v3 requests serve off an indexer.

Which one to choose

If speed and real-time freshness are crucial (for example, you need near-instant visibility of new transactions), go with v2.

If you need highly stable, processed, and precise data, and can tolerate a slight indexing delay—v3 is likely the better option.

Tip: If the data provided by v2 is sufficient for your use case, it should remain your best choice for simplicity and quick data access.

Key differences detailed

Indexing latency (data freshness)

v2: Delivers raw data more quickly, effectively providing the “freshest” data at any given moment.
Feels more “native” because it uses the ADNL protocol directly, which often lets it react faster to blockchain changes.

v3: Performs additional data processing and indexing. As a result, it may have a slight lag compared to raw data sources. Offers well-structured and cleaned data, which can be advantageous for complex queries.
If ultra-fresh data is a priority (for instance, if you need to see changes at near real-time), use v2 tends to have the edge.

Request latency

Our TON RPC node network is global and we strive to always have the shortest travel time for your requests based on our highly tuned infrastructure.

See also Available clouds, regions, and locations.