Solana Vs. Polygon Vs. Ethereum

Blockchain technology is one of the most talked-about technologies in the world right now. It has entered almost every segment, bringing its decentralized system for improvements over the existing technologies. With the entry of blockchain, many different kinds of applications were also developed for these segments. It also gave birth to things like NFTs, decentralized finance, cryptocurrency, and a lot more. However, the demand for blockchain platform apps has been increasing day by day, and due to this, the solutions for the same have been growing at a much faster pace.

These applications are based on a particular blockchain platform, out of which the most prominent are Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon. This article will not only provide detailed information about these three blockchain platforms. Still, it will also list the major differences that set them apart and make them apt for different segments. While Ethereum has been one of the oldest and most used blockchain platforms, Polygon and Solana have been the new players in the market, providing faster and better transactions for the users. While Ethereum has been a major leader in terms of blockchain platforms, based on which most of the applications are made, its competitors have been trying to offer even more. 

The application platforms work irrespective of their value

One of the major misconceptions that people have, especially those who are new to this, is that the blockchain platform’s performance is represented by the value it has while trading. First of all, the information is completely false. Before you pick up a blockchain platform to create your apps on, be assured that the value does not affect it. Values of the cryptocurrency are just meant for trading alone. Ethereum is one of the most diversified platforms in terms of blockchain application development. With Ethereum 2.0, it has more features and improvements than any other competitor. 

Ethereum started a market where blockchain platforms were used for NFTs and smart contracts. It led to further expansion of the market and led to the birth of competitors like Polygon and Solana. While Solana provides major competition to the Ethereum platform, Polygon is just behind it. Solana provides much faster transactions at a reduced cost when compared to Ethereum and Polygon, while Polygon provides faster transaction speeds. However, Ethereum still stands as the most diverse and transparent landscape of decentralized applications.

The article will allow you to understand the major difference between the three blockchain platforms and which one you should opt for based on the type of application you want to develop. Architecture, Consensus, scalability, and transaction speeds are the main criteria based on which the blockchain platforms will be differentiated. While the Ethereum platform is more about the features and security, Solana and Polygon are more about affordable rates, faster speeds, and scalability. Before looking into the difference between the three, let’s have a look at what the three blockchain platforms actually are.

Ethereum

We already know the most popular blockchain platform in the world is Bitcoin. Ethereum comes in second place and is one of the most favored blockchain platforms for creating decentralized applications. Ethereum has been responsible for creating an open economy by providing its own cryptocurrency and platform for developing decentralized applications. The platform can be accessed by anyone regardless of location and background. There is a dominance of Ethereum when it comes to the market of digital collectibles as it has been the first platform that provided a way for NFTs. Due to this, developers have been using it as the first preference for creating digital assets. The only flaw you can count on here is the platform’s intensive computing power. 

Features

• Development and Deployment of smart contracts. In fact, the Ethereum platform was the base of creating NFTs and Smart contracts.
• It uses the Ethereum Virtual machine that understands the contracts and allows users to interact with them.
• it allows the users to create consolidated apps, which are decentralized applications.
• Ether is the digital token of Ethereum, which can also be earned as a reward.
• It enables the users to create democratic decision-making with complete transparency, which is also known as Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), where there is no single leader governing everything

Pros 

• Ethereum has more emphasis on features and improvements, which makes it one of the best blockchain app development platforms. 
• The blockchain rarely goes through any issue and is one of the most stable and efficient blockchain platforms available.
• It comes with a Stateful architecture which makes it better for app development.

Cons

• Needs a lot of processing power; therefore, there is less scope of involvement of miners
• Due to the high requirement of resources, the performance takes the toll
• Less transaction processing speed

Solana

Solana is undoubtedly a great competitor to Ethereum. The platform has been created to provide developers with a place to develop user-oriented applications. The most intriguing feature of the platform is its efficiency. Solana is known to process around 50,000 to 65,000 transactions every second, making it one of the fastest blockchain platforms available. It is currently the quickest blockchain platform available to developers for creating scalable applications and due to this, it has the most efficient ecosystem. The major focus of Solana is on scalability and user-friendly application, which makes it one of the best choices for developers if they are considering a new blockchain platform apart from Ethereum. It currently has more than 400 Defi, Web3, and NFTs. It usually conducts up to 3,000 transactions a second to go up to 65,000 transactions in a second. 

Features

• The blockchain model work on the consensus concept of PoH(Proof of History) for allowing and restricting entries in the database
• It uses the Gulfstream system for the transaction to wait in a memory pool until their turn for processing is up. It holds up to 1,00,00 transactions at one time.
• It can enable multiple smart contracts simultaneously, which helps in saving cost and time.
• Fast processing of data by using multiple hardware connected through networks.
• Uses different blockchain nodes in smaller packets for a speedier speed of transactions.

Pros

• Follow a stateless architecture
• Increased speed of transaction processing of up to 50,000 transactions a second
• High-performance protocol for scalability

Cons

• The hardware support for Solana is costlier in comparison
• Not decentralized enough

Polygon

Polygon is one of the most renowned digital blockchain platforms available to users. The platform is responsible for providing digital assets and economies. The major functionality of Polygon is to enable the multichain Ethereum ecosystem. It provides a network that offers interoperability between previous and present infrastructure scenarios of Ethereum. Due to this, it offers great functionality and the fastest transaction speed of almost 65,000 transactions per second. It can be called a more hybrid form of blockchain platform, which companies the good features of both Ethereum and Solana.

Features

• Interoperability of elements based on the previous and existing architecture of Ethereum
• It is completely compatible with Ethereum
• Higher performance with a transaction speed of up to 65,000 transactions per second
• Provides multi-chain architecture for better scalability

Pros

• More secure due to the results of the validation system
• Polygon is built to scale with the increasing volume of transactions
• Provides a similar experience to that of Ethereum

Cons

• With developments in Ethereum 2.0, Polygon might not be required as the second layer

Difference between Polygon, Solana, and Ethereum

We mentioned the major details of all the three blockchain platforms above, however, as a blockchain application developer, which one should you go for.

Now we will discuss the major difference between all the three blockchain platforms which makes them suitable for multiple blockchain applications. 

Consensus

It is one mandatory procedure that you will find among all the decentralized blockchain platforms. It is what helps to reach an agreement on the present state of the network. What Ethereum follows is PoW or Proof of Work mechanism of consensus. The problem with Ethereum is the requirement of high processing power. Due to this, it does not allow the scope for multiple users to participate in this, although it allows miners globally to participate in the consensus. Since processing power requirement is high, it also takes a toll on the performance but ensures better security.

With Polygon, you can get a consensus-based on PoS or Proof of Stake. If a user takes on the Polygon network, they can earn rewards in the form of Matic taken. Since it offers a combination of technologies, the consensus can be achieved faster. Solana on the other hand has a unique approach to consensus mechanism. Since it provides one of the fastest transaction speeds, the mechanism offers efficient operation. It uses an array of computations to know the ideal verification method of the time gap between two events. It can be called a Hybrid form of consensus with the best features of PoW, PoS, and PoH, which is Proof of History. It allows for more flexibility in sorting transactions. It is why Solana can process up to 65,000 transactions in a second. 

Transaction Speed

The speed of transactions on a blockchain platform is one of the major factors that helps the developer decide the platform they need to work on. When it comes to transaction speeds, the slowest among them is Ethereum. Now every participant in Ethereum has a copy of the digital ledger, and the holder takes care of the operation and management of the network. Now Ethereum is one of the most used and popular blockchain platforms, due to which it has a lot of crowd waiting to verify their transactions. Therefore, the participant will either have to wait for a long time or pay a huge fee for verification. Due to this, only a limited number of transactions are processed every second, which can range between 13-15.

When it comes to Solana and Polygon, they are way ahead in terms of transaction speeds and offer 50,000-65,000 transactions per second which are a lot faster. Solana depends on Tower Byzantine Fault Tolerance of TBFT which prevents real-time communication among nodes and reduces the time taken, increasing efficiency overall. Polygon on the other hand has the fastest speed. Since it provides a hybrid environment, it has the fastest transaction speed of 65,000 transactions a second.

Architecture

Another important factor that the developers consider is the architecture. The architecture defines the state of the blockchain network and if it can modify variable values. Ethereum has undoubtedly one of the best stateful architectures among the competition due to which it is widely used for making apps on the blockchain platform. The platform records all the transactions in the existing state and copies of the latest transactions are immediately coined to mirror the recent transactions. It is an effective network but is slower when compared to stateless networks.

Polygon comes with the idea of a borderless society and economy where it works like POS blockchain and exchanges are present in the form of clusters. Solana on the other hand is based on a cluster architecture that works on Solana clusters. It is basically a collection of validators that together address the client transactions with ledger maintenance. Every cluster has its own validator and the roles of each validator continue to rotate among them. The leader of the cluster will build and timestamp the transaction with PoH consensus. It is a stateless architecture and due to this, the whole state of Solana architecture does not need to update every time. It is why both Solana and Polygon are very efficient and provide faster transactions.

Scalability

It is one of the most critical factors that the developer should look after before selecting a platform for blockchain app development. It shows if the network is scalable to ensure the completion of the transaction. With Ethereum, the transaction speed is 15 transactions per second, which is less when compared to the competitors. However, the layer 2 scaling with multichain network support resolves the scalability issue. Solana can process 50,000 transactions a second, due to which scalability issues do not exist in it. The users have access to faster transaction speeds, a better consensus model, and efficient architecture. Polygon offers a similar kind of scalability as Solana with even improved transaction speeds. 

Profit and loss

Ethereum exhibits Solidity in the profit and loss mechanism. Decentralized and designed as a protocol, Solana incorporates an innovative Proof-of-History (PoH) mechanism. This mechanism enables its Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol structure to operate more efficiently.

Polygon follows Golang, solidity, and Vyper in the p/l equation. 

Famous projects

• Ethereum has done projects like Cryptokitty, crypto punks, OpenSea, Rarible, Nifty Gateway, Decentraland. 
• Solana has done projects like Degenerate App AcademySolPunks, Sollamas, Solsea. 
• Polygon has done Plasma-Enabled Sidechain, PoS SportX, ZED RUN, Easy Fi, QuickSwap. 

Transaction number

In each second, 13-15 Ethereum transactions can be done. Solana allows up to 65,000 worth of transactions per second. Polygon allows up to 65,000 transactions per second. 

Conclusion

So here is the difference between the three most popular blockchain platforms which blockchain app developers around the world use. The usage of all three platforms would depend on the type of applications that will be created. These blockchain platforms are fast gaining attention in the market due to the kind of application and usability it offers. Also, since the crypto space is continuously booming, we will be looking at a huge increase in the use of these platforms in the future. Using these platforms, the user can invest their time into Defi and NFTs, which are the biggest trend in the world of blockchain right now. It would be completely the choice of the user as to which of the three platforms they want to use for Defi and NFT. 

For now, Ethereum has a stronghold over the market of Defi and NFT as it was the base for the evolution of NFTs and the developers still prefer Ethereum for it. However, with an increase in crypto completion, platforms like Solana and Polygon are gaining a lot of popularity. If you are new to the crypto market or are recently entering the NFT and Defi market, this article would help you understand which platform is better for you to invest your time and resource. In total, if you are looking for the most dependable platform with security and features, it would be Ethereum. However, if you are looking for affordability and faster speeds, it would be better to opt for Solana or Polygon.