Best Ethereum Data APIs for Developers in 2026

The short answer

Pick an Ethereum API by the job you need done:

• Read the chain and send transactions: use an RPC provider. Alchemy, Infura and QuickNode all have a free way in. PublicNode runs a node anyone can call with no key, but it refuses log searches that name no contract.
• Decoded trades, transfers, holders and traces: use Bitquery, or GoldRush if fixed REST calls are enough.
• Verified contract source and ABIs: use Etherscan's V2 API. Ethereum is on its free plan.
• Data shaped around your own contracts: write a subgraph on The Graph.
• The mempool: Bitquery serves it for Ethereum. Our test query on 5 October 2026 returned pending transactions.

What we tested on 5 October 2026

We called the no-cost entry points and ran one hour of Ethereum data, 09:00 to 10:00 UTC, through Bitquery.

Test	Result
eth_blockNumber on PublicNode, ethereum-rpc.publicnode.com, with no key	Answered with the latest block
eth_getLogs on the same node for Uniswap v2 swap events in the last 100 blocks, with no contract address	Refused: "Please specify an address in your request"
eth_getLogs on the same node over the last 10,000 blocks	Refused: archive requests need a personal token
debug_traceBlockByNumber on the same node	Refused: the method is not available
Infura, Alchemy's shared demo key and Etherscan V2, with no key of our own	Infura: "invalid project id". Alchemy: HTTP 429, too many requests. Etherscan: "Missing/Invalid API Key".
Bitquery mempool query on Ethereum	Returned pending transactions
Bitquery DEX trades on Ethereum, our hour	14,333 trades under 18 protocol labels
Bitquery calls inside contracts that carried ETH, same hour	28,488, against 24,796 top-level transactions that carried ETH

One in five uniswap_v2 trades came from a fork

Forks of Uniswap carry Uniswap's protocol label in Bitquery's data, so a filter on the label alone counts them too. Of the 2,298 trades labelled uniswap_v2 in our hour, 1,850 (80%) came from Uniswap's own v2 factory, 0x5c69bee701ef814a2b6a3edd4b1652cb9cc5aa6f, as listed in Uniswap's v2 deployments. SushiSwap's factory, 0xc0aee478e3658e2610c5f7a4a2e1777ce9e4f2ac on Sushi's contract page, made 144. Other forks made the rest.

The newer labels were cleaner. Uniswap's v3 factory made 4,723 of the 4,759 uniswap_v3 trades (99%), and all 6,297 uniswap_v4 trades ran through Uniswap's v4 PoolManager. The hour also held 272 trades labelled seaport_v1.4. Those are NFT sales through Seaport, the contract OpenSea runs on, so filter on Currency.Fungible when you want token swaps only.

To count Uniswap v2 itself, filter on its factory address. This query splits the last hour of uniswap_v2 trades by factory:

query UniswapV2LabelByFactory {
  EVM(network: eth) {
    DEXTrades(
      where: {
        Block: { Time: { since_relative: { hours_ago: 1 } } }
        Trade: { Dex: { ProtocolName: { is: "uniswap_v2" } } }
      }
      orderBy: { descendingByField: "trades" }
      limit: { count: 5 }
    ) {
      Trade { Dex { OwnerAddress } }
      trades: count
    }
  }
}

Contracts moved ETH that a transaction list misses

In the same hour, 28,488 calls made inside other transactions carried ETH. Only 24,796 top-level transactions did. When a wallet withdraws ETH from a lending pool or unwraps WETH through a router, the ETH arrives in one of these inner calls, and a plain transaction list never shows it. You need traces to see them. Bitquery serves them as Calls. The RPC providers below mostly keep trace methods for paid plans.

What to look for in an Ethereum API

1. Reads, writes or both. Sending a transaction is an RPC job. Analytics is not, and paying RPC prices for heavy reads is an easy way to overspend.
2. Log access. PublicNode refused a log search that named no contract. Reading swap or transfer events across all contracts needs a keyed node, an indexed API or a vendor's own transfer method.
3. Decoded or raw. A swap log is not a trade. Turning swap events from Uniswap, Curve, Balancer and the rest into trades with USD prices is the work you are buying, and forks under one label are part of it.
4. Traces. In our hour, more calls inside contracts carried ETH than top-level transactions did. Compliance, accounting and forensics need them.
5. History and live delivery. Check how far back each dataset goes, and whether data is pushed to you over WebSocket, gRPC or Kafka or has to be polled.

The best Ethereum APIs

1. Bitquery: decoded Ethereum data, traces and the mempool

Bitquery indexes Ethereum into the same GraphQL schema it uses for its other chains. You get DEX trades with price, amounts, USD value, addresses and protocol, plus OHLCV candles, transfers, balances, token holders, contract events, calls and traces. Trades from Uniswap v2, v3 and v4, Curve, Balancer and Fluid all showed up in our hour.

Ethereum is one of ten chains on the self-service plans. Those plans keep a rolling window. Trades and prices from the Trading API go back 30 days. The on-chain tables for events, calls (which hold the traces), transfers, balance updates and DEX trades go back about 4 days, when we checked on 9 October 2026. Deeper history is a per-chain archive add-on or Enterprise.

Pending transactions come from the mempool API, which covers Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon and Tron. Data arrives through GraphQL queries or WebSocket streams, with Kafka topics on Enterprise. Address labels and money-flow tracing come through the Bitquery MCP server on the AI Investigation plan, at $149 per month ($100 billed yearly).

There is no free plan. A 7-day trial needs no card. After it, Personal costs $49 per month ($29 billed yearly) and covers queries only. Pro, at $99 per month ($69 billed yearly), adds every stream, the mempool included. The pricing page has the details.

Best for: analytics, trading products, accounting and forensics, and products that span several chains.

Limits: no RPC nodes and no transaction sending, so pair it with an RPC provider if your app writes to the chain. Self-service history is a rolling window.

DEX API · Mempool API · Docs: Ethereum DEX API

2. Alchemy: RPC, traces and wallet tools

Alchemy's free plan gives 30 million compute units per month at 25 requests per second, with 5 apps and 5 webhooks. Above that, Pay As You Go charges $0.525 per million compute units, with no monthly fee. Paid plans add the trace and debug methods on Ethereum mainnet. Alchemy also runs a Transfers API that includes internal transfers, a Prices API with historical prices, and Gas Manager, a paymaster for ERC-4337 smart accounts.

Best for: dApps and wallets that send transactions, and teams that want SDKs and webhooks from one vendor.

Limits: the Prices API returns price points, not candles, and we found no DEX trade history product. Trade data is a layer you build.

3. Infura: RPC with a daily allowance

Infura's pricing lists a free Core plan with 3 million credits per day at 500 credits per second. Developer costs $50 per month for 15 million credits per day, and Team costs $225. Infura's trace methods, such as trace_block and trace_transaction, are an open beta for paying customers. Our call with no key failed, so even the free plan needs a key.

Best for: plain RPC with a predictable daily allowance.

Limits: RPC only, with traces in beta on paid plans and no decoded data.

4. QuickNode: RPC and Streams on many chains

QuickNode's chain list runs to more than 75 chains. Its free trial lasts one month with 10 million credits and needs no card, and services stop at the end unless you upgrade. Build, the cheapest plan, costs $49 per month ($42 billed yearly) for 80 million credits, per QuickNode's pricing page. Paid plans include trace_* and debug_* methods. Streams push blocks, logs and traces to your own store, and a marketplace sells add-ons. QuickNode Functions, its serverless product, is being retired.

Best for: fast RPC on many chains from one vendor.

Limits: Streams hand you raw blocks, logs and traces. Turning swap logs into trades is your job.

5. Etherscan V2: verified source, ABIs and lookups

Etherscan's free plan allows 3 calls per second and 100,000 calls per day, and Ethereum mainnet is on it, per the chain list. Source code and ABI calls are free on every chain. Lite, the cheapest paid plan, costs $49 per month for 5 calls per second. The API has internal-transaction lookups by address, by transaction and by block range, but no live feed. The free key costs nothing; our call without one was refused.

Best for: contract source, ABIs and quick address lookups.

Limits: rate caps make it a poor fit for bulk reads, and nothing is pushed to you.

6. The Graph: indexes you define for your own contracts

On The Graph, you write a subgraph that turns your contracts' events into the records you need. Subgraph Studio pricing gives 100,000 free queries per month, then $2 per 100,000. Substreams runs the indexing in parallel for faster syncs. The old hosted service shut down on 12 June 2024.

Best for: protocol teams indexing their own contracts.

Limits: you write, deploy and maintain the subgraph, and re-sync it when the schema changes.

7. GoldRush (Covalent): REST data across many chains

GoldRush, the data product from Covalent, lists more than 100 chains behind one REST shape for balances, transactions, NFTs and prices, OHLCV candles included. Its streaming API has been in public beta since June 2025. The chains named for streaming include Base, Solana and Polygon, but GoldRush's Ethereum page lists no stream. The pricing page offers a 14-day trial with 25,000 credits and no card.

Best for: wallets and portfolio trackers that want breadth over REST.

Limits: no Ethereum stream, and fixed endpoints instead of a query language.

8. PublicNode: a public node with no key

PublicNode serves ethereum-rpc.publicnode.com to anyone. In our test it answered reads, but it refused a log search that named no contract, refused archive reads and had no trace method.

Best for: scripts and light reads.

Limits: no broad log search, no history and no traces.

Ethereum API comparison

All prices and limits were checked on each vendor's own page on 5 October 2026.

Provider	Type	What it gives you on Ethereum	Cheapest way in
Bitquery	Indexed data	Decoded DEX trades, transfers, holders, events, calls, traces, mempool	7-day trial, then $49/mo ($29 yearly); streams from $99/mo
Alchemy	RPC and APIs	Nodes, Transfers and Prices APIs, webhooks; traces on paid plans	Free, 30M compute units/mo
Infura	RPC	Nodes; trace methods in beta on paid plans	Free key, 3M credits/day
QuickNode	RPC and Streams	Nodes, trace and debug on paid plans, Streams	Free for one month, no card
Etherscan V2	Explorer API	Source, ABIs, address, transaction and internal-transaction lookups	Free key, 3 calls/s and 100,000/day
The Graph	Custom indexer	Subgraphs and Substreams you write	100,000 free queries/mo
GoldRush	REST data API	Balances, transactions, NFTs, prices and OHLCV	14-day trial, no card
PublicNode	Public node	Reads only; no broad log search, history or traces	No cost, no key

Which Ethereum API should you choose?

• Building a dApp or wallet that sends transactions? Alchemy, Infura or QuickNode.
• Building analytics, a screener or a trading product? Bitquery, for decoded trades and OHLCV.
• Need traces or internal transfers? Bitquery, or a paid plan at Alchemy, Infura or QuickNode.
• Indexing only your own contracts? The Graph.
• Need verified source or ABIs? Etherscan's V2 API.
• Need the mempool? Bitquery, whose mempool feed covers Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon and Tron.

FAQ

What is the best free Ethereum API?

For RPC, Alchemy and Infura both have free plans: Alchemy gives 30 million compute units per month, and Infura 3 million credits per day. QuickNode's free trial ends after a month. Etherscan's free plan covers Ethereum at 3 calls per second. PublicNode needs no key at all, but it refuses broad log searches. Bitquery has no free plan; its 7-day trial needs no card, and paid plans start at $49 per month ($29 billed yearly).

Can I get Ethereum DEX trade data from an RPC provider?

Only by building it. An RPC node gives you logs. Turning them into trades means decoding each protocol, resolving token details and working out prices. It also means telling Uniswap apart from its forks, which emit the same swap events: in our hour, one in five trades that looked like Uniswap v2 came from a fork. Bitquery ships the trades already decoded.

What is the difference between an Ethereum RPC and an Ethereum data API?

An RPC node answers questions about the current state, runs contract calls and accepts transactions. A data API serves an index built from the chain's history and its live blocks, such as trades, transfers, holders and prices, with filters and totals a node cannot work out for you.

How do I get Ethereum mempool data?

Use a provider that watches pending transactions across many nodes. Bitquery's mempool API covers Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon and Tron, through GraphQL queries or streams, and streams need the Pro plan or above. On Base, Arbitrum and Optimism, the same query returned an error in our test.

Which Ethereum API is best for compliance and forensics?

One with traces, because a contract can send ETH in a call that never shows up as a transaction of its own. In our hour, 28,488 such calls carried ETH. Bitquery serves calls and traces, and its MCP server adds address labels and money-flow tracing on the $149 AI Investigation plan. For a single address, Etherscan's internal-transaction lookups also work.

Related reading

• Bitquery vs Alchemy
• Bitquery vs The Graph
• Bitquery vs Covalent
• DEX API · Mempool API · Money-flow tracing over MCP

Updated on 5 October 2026 by the Bitquery team: plans and prices were checked against our billing records, and each other vendor's claims against that vendor's own pages on the same day. We ran the test calls and the hour of Ethereum data ourselves. We added PublicNode, the fork split and the count of calls inside contracts. We removed venue and chain counts, latency figures and the MEV detail we could not confirm. AI tools helped redraft the text.