This repository contains performance benchmarks for various blockchain indexers, comparing their capabilities and performance across different indexing scenarios.
| Case | Description | Features |
|---|---|---|
| case_1_lbtc_event_only | Simple event indexing of LBTC token transfers | Event handling, No RPC calls, Write-only operations |
| case_2_lbtc_full | Complex indexing with RPC calls for token balances | Event handling, RPC calls, Read-after-write operations |
| case_3_ethereum_block | Block-level indexing of Ethereum blocks | Block handling, Metadata extraction |
| case_4_on_transaction | Transaction gas usage indexing | Transaction handling, Gas calculations |
| case_5_on_trace | Uniswap V2 transaction trace analysis | Transaction trace handling, Swap decoding |
| case_6_template | Uniswap V2 template benchmark | Event handling, Pair and swap analysis |
Our most recent benchmark (April 2025) shows significant performance differences between indexers:
- Fastest Event Processing: Envio (2m) and Sentio (6m) for simple event indexing
- Best RPC Performance: Envio (13m) and Sentio (45m) for complex RPC interactions
- Block Processing Leader: Envio with HyperSync (7.9s) and Sentio (18m) for block-level indexing
- Transaction Processing: Subsquid (5m) and Envio with HyperSync (1.5m) for gas usage indexing
- Trace Processing Leader: Envio with HyperSync (41s) and Subsquid (2m) for transaction trace analysis
- Template Processing: Envio (20s) and Subsquid (2m) for Uniswap V2 template indexing
See the complete benchmark results for detailed timing data, completeness metrics, and analysis.
- All benchmarks run on standardized hardware environments
- Each test runs until completion or timeout (72 hours)
- RPC providers: When built-in RPC support isn't available, we use Alchemy Growth tier
Our benchmark cases are designed to test different aspects of indexer performance:
-
Chain Selection:
- Ethereum Mainnet for all test cases
-
Data Types:
- Events: Transfer events in case_1 and case_2
- Blocks: Block data in case_3
- Transactions: Gas usage in case_4
- Traces: Uniswap V2 swap transactions in case_5
-
RPC Patterns:
- No RPC: case_1 tests raw event processing
- RPC Calls: case_2 tests balanceOf() calls
- Block Data: case_3 tests block processing
- Transaction Data: case_4 tests transaction processing
- Trace Data: case_5 tests transaction trace processing
-
Write Patterns:
- Write-only: case_1 tests simple data storage
- Read-after-write: case_2 tests database interaction complexity
- Computational: case_4 tests calculation and derivation of metrics
- Sentio: The most comprehensive blockchain data platform with the widest chain support, offering both raw data access and indexing capabilities across multiple blockchain ecosystems
- Envio HyperSync: Envio's high-performance EVM based blockchain data engine that serves as a direct replacement for traditional RPC endpoints for raw blockchain data
- Envio HyperIndex: Built on top of HyperSync, providing a complete indexing framework with schema management, event handling, and GraphQL APIs
- Ponder: A framework for building and deploying blockchain data APIs
- Subsquid: A framework for building GraphQL APIs on top of blockchain data
- Subgraph: The Graph Protocol's indexing solution for building open APIs
- Use HyperSync directly when you need raw blockchain data at maximum speed
- Use HyperIndex when you need a full-featured indexing solution
| Chain | Sentio | Envio | Ponder | Subsquid | Subgraph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EVM* | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Sui | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Aptos | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| StarkNet | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Cosmos | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | |
| Solana | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ||
| Bitcoin | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| Fuel | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
* Including many EVM-compatible L1/L2 chains
| Feature | Sentio | Envio | Ponder | Subsquid | Subgraph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Event Handler | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Block Handler | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| Transaction Handler | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | |
| Trace/Internal Tx Handler | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ||
| Native RPC | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | |
| SQL Querying | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| GraphQL API | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Decentralized Network | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
$ Envio does not support natively, but one can utilize HyperSync to retrieve data
† Subgraph has limited internal transaction visibility, only detecting direct contract calls, not internal transactions. This leads to incomplete data (~40% fewer records) and inaccurate sender identification in trace-level indexing as documented in the case_5_on_trace benchmark.
This benchmark provides a comparative analysis of indexer performance across different scenarios, helping developers choose the most appropriate indexing solution for their specific needs.
| Case | Description | Chain | Block Range | Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| case_1_lbtc_event_only | LBTC Token Transfer Events | Ethereum | 0 to 22200000 | Event handling, No RPC calls, Write-only |
| case_2_lbtc_full | LBTC Token with RPC calls | Ethereum | 22100000 to 22200000 | Event handling, RPC calls, Read-after-write |
| case_3_ethereum_block | Ethereum Block Processing | Ethereum | 0 to 100000 | Block handling, Metadata extraction |
| case_4_on_transaction | Ethereum Transaction Gas Usage | Ethereum | 22280000 to 22290000 | Transaction handling, Gas calculations |
| case_5_on_trace | Uniswap V2 Swap Trace Analysis | Ethereum | 22200000 to 22290000 | Transaction trace handling, Swap decoding |
| case_6_template | Uniswap V2 Template | Ethereum | 19000000 to 19010000 | Event handling, Pair and swap analysis |
| Case | Sentio | Envio HyperSync | Envio HyperIndex | Ponder | Subsquid | Subgraph | Sentio_Subgraph | Goldsky_Subgraph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| case_1_lbtc_event_only | 8m | 2m | 1h40m | 10m | 3h9m | 2h36m | ||
| case_2_lbtc_full | 45m | 13m | 4h38m | 32m | 18h38m | 16h55m | ||
| case_3_ethereum_block | 18m | 7.9s | 33m | 1m‡ | 10m | 15m | ||
| case_4_on_transaction | 23m | 1m26s | 33m | 5m | N/A | |||
| case_5_on_trace | 16m | 41s | N/A§ | 2m | 8m | 1h21m | ||
| case_6_template | 19m | 30s | 11m | 2m | 19m | 10m | 20h24m |
| Case | Sentio | Envio | Ponder | Subsquid | Subgraph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| case_1_lbtc_event_only | 296,734 | 296,734 | 296,138* | 296,734 | 296,734 |
| case_2_lbtc_full | 2,684 | 2,685‡ | 2,684 | 2,685‡ | 2,685‡ |
| case_3_ethereum_block | 100,000 | 100,000 | 100,001¶ | 13,156† | 100,001¶ |
| case_4_on_transaction | 1,696,641 | 1,696,423†† | 1,696,423 | 1,696,641 | N/A& |
| case_5_on_trace | 50,191 | 50,191 | 0** | 50,191 | 29,058§§ |
| case_6_template | 35,039 | 35,039 | 35,039 | 33,972††† | 35,039 |
* Missing ~5% of events
‡ Some implementations include 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 address
† Missing 86,844 blocks (86.84% of target range)
¶ Some implementations count 100,001 blocks because they include block 0 in their range
†† Envio processes blocks 22,280,000 to 22,289,999 due to exclusive end block handling, resulting in 218 fewer transactions
& Subgraph does not support transaction level access
** Ponder documentation indicates trace support, but our implementation encountered configuration issues that prevented successful trace capture
§§ Subgraph captured only ~58% of swap traces due to architectural limitations in accessing internal transactions
††† Subsquid captured 1,067 fewer swaps than other platforms
-
Performance Comparison:
- Envio's HyperSync technology shows exceptional performance across all test cases
- Envio HyperIndex provides a full-featured indexing solution with competitive performance
- Sentio performs consistently well across all test cases
- Ponder shows longer indexing times but with complete data coverage in most cases
- Subgraph demonstrates efficient block processing (10m for 100K blocks) with complete coverage
-
Data Completeness:
- Ponder is missing approximately 5% of data in case_1
- Subsquid is missing about 87% of blocks in case_3, primarily indexing blocks in the 45,000-100,000 range
- Envio/Ponder processes blocks up to but not including the end block in case_4 (stopping at 22,289,999) due to its exclusive end block handling, which explains the difference of 218 records compared to Sentio
- Sentio processed fewer traces in case_5 (45,895 vs 50,191 for Subsquid/Envio), possibly due to failed trace calls resulting from insufficient fees (requires further investigation to achieve complete data matching between implementations)
- Subgraph captured only ~58% of swap transactions in case_5 and identified significantly fewer unique senders (427 vs. ~1,200) due to limitations in accessing internal transactions
- Case 3 shows perfect data consistency with 100% similarity for blocks across all platforms
-
Specialized Capabilities:
- Envio shows exceptional performance with HyperSync technology (7.9s for 100K blocks, 30.75s for 90K blocks with trace data)
- Sentio performs consistently well across all test cases
- Subsquid shows fast processing but significant data gaps in block-level indexing
- Subgraph has fundamental architectural limitations for trace-level indexing, including inability to access internal transactions and inaccurate sender identification
-
Resource Efficiency:
- Event processing (case_1) is efficient across all indexers
- Block-level indexing (case_3) shows dramatic performance differences between traditional approaches and Envio's HyperSync
- RPC calls and complex data handling (case_2) increase indexing time for all indexers
- Trace processing (case_5) demonstrates the efficiency of specialized data access methods, with Envio's HyperSync showing exceptional performance
- While Ponder officially supports trace-level indexing, our implementation encountered persistent issues with capturing trace data despite multiple configuration attempts
All benchmark datasets, comparison reports, and analysis results are available via Google Drive:
- Complete Dataset Collection: Indexer Benchmark Datasets
- Contains data from all benchmark cases for all tested indexer platforms
- Includes raw data, comparison reports, and analysis files for each benchmark scenario
- Individual case folders are also linked in their respective README files