// Provider Comparison
Subglow vs QuickNode for Solana gRPC.
Both providers run the standard Yellowstone (Dragon's Mouth) gRPC protocol — the same open-source plugin, the same wire format, the same client libraries. But what your bot receives after connection is fundamentally different. QuickNode sends raw protobuf with Borsh-encoded instruction data. Subglow sends pre-parsed JSON with structured fields, event types, and native amounts. That difference translates directly into lower execution latency and less engineering overhead for your trading bot.
Quick comparison
Side-by-side overview of the key differences between Subglow and QuickNode for Solana gRPC streaming. QuickNode figures come from their own published pricing and documentation, which changed on 1 June 2026; last verified September 2026.
| Feature | QuickNode | Subglow |
|---|---|---|
| Protocol | Yellowstone (Dragon's Mouth) | Yellowstone (Dragon's Mouth) |
| Pre-parsed JSON | No — raw protobuf + Borsh | Yes — structured JSON output |
| Billing model | Credit-based; gRPC metered in bytes | Flat monthly pricing, no credits |
| Entry price with gRPC included | $499/mo (Scale) + metered usage | $99/mo, all-in |
| Cheaper plans | gRPC is a paid add-on on Build/Accelerate | gRPC included on every paid plan |
| Solana-specific | No — 80+ chains supported | Yes — purpose-built for Solana |
| Parse overhead on your bot | 15–30ms (Borsh + protobuf) | 0ms (pre-parsed server-side) |
| Server-side filtering | Basic Yellowstone filters | Program-level (Pump.fun, Raydium, Jupiter) |
| Delivery format | Binary protobuf | Structured JSON with event types |
| Standard Yellowstone client | Yes | Yes |
| Migration effort | — | Change endpoint URL + API key |
| JSON-RPC bundled with plan | Yes — same credit pool as gRPC | Yes — same API key as gRPC |
| JSON-RPC billing | CU-based per method | Flat daily cap per plan |
| sendTransaction isolation | Shares CU pool with reads | Dedicated daily bucket |
Both use Yellowstone — but the output differs
QuickNode and Subglow both run the same open-source Yellowstone gRPC plugin — formally called Dragon's Mouth — maintained by Triton One under the rpcpool/yellowstone-grpc repository on GitHub. This plugin hooks directly into the Solana validator through the Geyser interface, capturing transactions, account updates, slots, blocks, and entries the moment the validator processes them. At the protocol level, both providers stream the same on-chain data over persistent gRPC connections using Protocol Buffers.
The critical difference is in what happens to that data between the validator and your bot. QuickNode delivers the Yellowstone output as-is: raw protobuf messages containing Borsh-encoded instruction data. This is the standard behavior of the plugin — it serializes the validator's internal representation into Protocol Buffers and sends it over the wire. Your bot is then responsible for decoding the protobuf envelope, extracting the instruction bytes, deserializing the Borsh encoding, mapping instruction discriminators to event types, resolving account indices against the transaction's account list, and converting raw lamport values into native token amounts. This pipeline is non-trivial, error-prone, and adds measurable latency.
Subglow takes a different approach. Before delivery, we perform the full deserialization and parsing pipeline server-side. The data your bot receives is structured JSON with human-readable field names, identified event types (like "buy", "sell", "swap", "addLiquidity"), resolved wallet addresses, and native token amounts. For supported programs like Pump.fun, Raydium, and Jupiter, every field is pre-mapped — your bot can feed the data directly into its trading logic without touching a single Borsh decoder.
This distinction matters because parsing is not a theoretical cost — it's a measured one. In our benchmarks, the full protobuf + Borsh deserialization pipeline for a typical Pump.fun buy event takes 15–30msin Node.js and 5–12ms in Rust. For a sniper bot operating in Solana's 400ms slot window (and soon 150ms with Alpenglow), that parsing overhead represents a significant percentage of the total execution budget. Subglow eliminates it entirely.
Pricing model: credits vs flat rate
QuickNode is a general-purpose blockchain infrastructure provider supporting 80+ chains, and its pricing reflects that breadth. The structure changed on 1 June 2026, and a lot of comparisons online — including an earlier version of this page — have not caught up. Solana Yellowstone gRPC is now included at no extra access charge on the Scale plan ($499/mo) and on Business. Below that, on Build and Accelerate, it remains a paid add-on. There is no longer a separate gRPC subscription line on the higher tiers.
What you do still pay is usage. gRPC streaming is metered in bytes against your API credit pool rather than per call, which means a broad subscription filter is expensive in a way that is easy to miss when you are estimating. When the allocation runs out you upgrade, pay overages, or get throttled.
This credit model creates a variable cost structure that scales with usage. For teams running high-frequency trading bots that consume large volumes of streaming data, credit consumption can become unpredictable. A sudden surge in on-chain activity — like a Pump.fun token launch going viral or a Raydium pool seeing heavy volume — means your bot processes more transactions, which means more credits consumed, which means higher costs for that billing period. This makes budgeting difficult for trading operations where the volume you process is directly tied to the market conditions you can't control.
Subglow uses flat monthly pricing with no credit metering whatsoever. The Sniper plan starts at $99/mo and includes filtered Yellowstone gRPC streaming with pre-parsed JSON output for Pump.fun, Raydium, and Jupiter. The Pro plan at $249/mo adds zero rate limits, custom Program ID filters, full-speed delivery, and priority support. Whether you process 1 million or 100 million transactions in a month, your bill stays exactly the same. There are no credits, no per-request charges, no overage fees, and no throttling based on consumption.
So the comparison to make is $499/mo plus metered bytes against $99/mo fixed. QuickNode's model works well for multi-chain teams that need one platform for Ethereum, Solana, Polygon and the rest — the breadth genuinely justifies the price, and if you are already paying for Scale you are getting Solana gRPC without a new purchase order. But if your operation is Solana-only and you are building trading bots, copy-trading systems, or snipers, you are paying for 79 chains you do not use, and Subglow delivers the same Yellowstone protocol with pre-parsed output that QuickNode does not offer at any tier.
QuickNode
General-purpose multi-chain infrastructure
- •Solana gRPC included on Scale ($499/mo) and Business
- •Still a paid add-on on Build and Accelerate
- •gRPC metered in bytes against your API credit pool
- •Overages charged or throttled when credits depleted
- •80+ chains on one bill and one dashboard
- •Marketplace add-ons, Streams ETL, DAS API
- •Output: raw protobuf (Borsh parsing required)
Subglow
Purpose-built for Solana gRPC streaming
- ✓Sniper: $99/mo — filtered gRPC + pre-parsed JSON
- ✓Pro: $249/mo — zero rate limits, custom filters
- ✓Dedicated: custom — private infrastructure
- ✓Flat monthly pricing — no credit metering
- ✓No overages, no throttling on paid plans
- ✓Solana-only — every feature optimized for it
- ✓Output: pre-parsed JSON (zero parse overhead)
Execution latency: same wire protocol, different outcomes
When people compare gRPC providers, they often focus exclusively on wire latency — how quickly data travels from the validator to your machine. By this metric, QuickNode and Subglow are comparable because they both run the same Yellowstone gRPC plugin and stream data over the same protocol. The wire latency depends primarily on network topology and geographic proximity, not on the provider's software.
But wire latency is only part of the equation. What matters for trading bots is execution latency — the total time from when a slot is produced to when your bot can act on the parsed data. This includes wire latency plus any processing your bot must do before it can make a trading decision. And that's where the difference between raw protobuf and pre-parsed JSON becomes measurable.
With QuickNode, after your bot receives the raw protobuf message, it must run a multi-step deserialization pipeline before the data is usable. Here's what that looks like for a typical Pump.fun buy event in Node.js:
A 22ms difference might sound small in absolute terms, but in the context of Solana trading, it's significant. Solana currently operates with ~400ms slot times, and with the upcoming Alpenglow upgrade, finality is expected to drop toward 150ms. In a 150ms window, 22ms represents nearly 15% of your total execution budget. For sniper bots competing to buy Pump.fun launches or front-run liquidity additions on Raydium, that 22ms is often the difference between a profitable trade and a missed opportunity.
The advantage compounds when you consider that most trading bots process many transactions per second during peak activity. Each transaction requires the same parsing pipeline, and those milliseconds accumulate. With Subglow, your bot's CPU is free to focus on trading logic, risk management, and order execution — rather than spending cycles on deserialization that could have been done once on the server side.
When to choose QuickNode
QuickNode is a strong choice for teams that need more than just Solana gRPC streaming. As a general-purpose blockchain infrastructure provider, QuickNode offers a comprehensive platform that serves a wide range of use cases across multiple chains. This comparison would be incomplete without acknowledging where QuickNode genuinely excels.
Multi-chain support. QuickNode supports over 30 blockchains including Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, Avalanche, BSC, and Solana. If your project requires infrastructure across multiple chains — for example, a cross-chain arbitrage system, a multi-chain wallet backend, or an analytics platform covering the broader DeFi ecosystem — QuickNode provides a single platform with unified billing, a single dashboard, and consistent APIs. Running separate infrastructure for each chain is operationally complex; QuickNode simplifies this significantly.
Multi-chain JSON-RPC + WebSocket + REST. QuickNode isn't just a Solana shop — they ship standard JSON-RPC, WebSocket, and REST endpoints across 80+ chains with a unified dashboard and billing. Subglow also bundles Solana JSON-RPC on the same API key as gRPC (flat-priced, with a dedicated sendTransaction bucket), but we're Solana-only. If you need a single vendor serving Ethereum, Polygon, Base, and Solana out of the same console, QuickNode is the fit. If your workload is Solana-only and you want the JSON-RPC + gRPC bundle without credit math, that's where Subglow lands.
Marketplace add-ons. QuickNode has a marketplace of community-built add-ons that extend the platform's functionality — things like enhanced transaction history APIs, token metadata services, priority fee estimators, and cross-chain bridges. If you need these capabilities alongside your gRPC streaming, QuickNode's integrated marketplace is convenient.
Enterprise features. For large organizations, QuickNode offers enterprise-tier plans with SLAs, dedicated support, custom rate limits, and compliance features. Their established track record and broad customer base make them a safe choice for enterprise procurement processes that favor large, well-known vendors.
Choose QuickNode if you need…
- →Ethereum + Solana + other chains on one platform
- →To already be on Scale or Business — gRPC is included
- →REST APIs, Streams ETL, and marketplace add-ons
- →Credit-metered billing with procurement flexibility
- →Enterprise SLAs and compliance features
- →WebSocket, REST, and gRPC across 80+ chains
Choose Subglow if you need…
- ✓Solana-only gRPC with the lowest execution latency
- ✓Pre-parsed JSON — no Borsh or protobuf decoding
- ✓Flat monthly pricing, no credit metering
- ✓Server-side program filtering (Pump.fun, Raydium, Jupiter)
- ✓The lowest-cost Yellowstone gRPC starting at $99/mo
- ✓Purpose-built infrastructure for trading bots
The bottom line: if you're building multi-chain applications or need a full-stack blockchain infrastructure platform, QuickNode is a mature and capable choice. If you're building Solana trading bots, sniper bots, copy-trading systems, or real-time analytics on Solana DEX activity — and execution latency, pre-parsed output, and cost matter — Subglow is purpose-built for exactly that use case.
Migration from QuickNode to Subglow
Because both QuickNode and Subglow use the standard Yellowstone gRPC protocol, migrating between them is remarkably simple. There are no client library changes, no protocol differences, and no subscription logic to rewrite. The Yellowstone client you're already using — whether @triton-one/yellowstone-grpc in JavaScript or yellowstone-grpc-client in Rust — works with both providers out of the box.
The entire migration is a two-line change: swap the endpoint URL and update your API key. Here's exactly what it looks like:
That's it. The same @triton-one/yellowstone-grpc client library, the same subscribe() method, the same filter configuration. The connection behavior, reconnection logic, and subscription management all remain identical because the underlying protocol hasn't changed.
The one thing that does change is what you can remove from your codebase. Because Subglow delivers pre-parsed JSON instead of raw protobuf, you can strip out your entire deserialization pipeline:
- ✕Protobuf decode logic (e.g. deserializeUnchecked, protobuf.decode)
- ✕Borsh schema definitions for each program's instruction set
- ✕Instruction discriminator mapping tables
- ✕Account index resolution logic (accountKeys[instruction.accountKeyIndexes[n]])
- ✕Lamport-to-SOL conversion utilities
- ✕Custom error handling for malformed or unknown instruction formats
- ✕IDL files for Anchor programs you were manually decoding
For teams that have invested significant engineering time into building and maintaining their Borsh deserialization pipeline — especially across multiple programs like Pump.fun, Raydium, and Jupiter, each with their own instruction layouts — this simplification is substantial. Less code to maintain, fewer edge cases to handle, fewer breakage points when programs update their instruction format, and less cognitive overhead for developers joining the team.
Migrating back to QuickNode (or any other Yellowstone provider) is equally straightforward — change the endpoint URL and API key again. Because both providers use the same standard protocol, there is no vendor lock-in at the protocol level. The only "lock-in" with Subglow is the convenience of pre-parsed output — once you remove your parsing pipeline, you'd need to rebuild it if you switch to a raw protobuf provider.
Technical deep-dive: what your bot actually receives
To understand the practical difference between QuickNode and Subglow, let's look at what your bot receives for the same on-chain event — a Pump.fun buy transaction. This is a real-world example of the data your trading bot needs to process.
What QuickNode delivers: A raw Yellowstone gRPC message containing a SubscribeUpdateTransaction with a TransactionInfo Protocol Buffer. Inside it, you find an array of CompiledInstruction messages, each containing a data field with raw bytes. For the Pump.fun instruction, this is Borsh-encoded binary data starting with an 8-byte discriminator (e.g., 0x66063d1201daebea for a buy instruction). Your bot must identify the correct instruction among potentially dozens in the transaction, verify the discriminator, deserialize the remaining bytes according to Pump.fun's Borsh schema, resolve the account indices to get the token mint, buyer wallet, and bonding curve addresses, then convert the raw lamport values into SOL amounts. Every program has its own schema — Raydium is different from Pump.fun, which is different from Jupiter.
What Subglow delivers: A structured JSON object with the event type already identified, all fields named and typed, wallet addresses resolved, and amounts in native units:
Your bot can read sol_amount, bonding_curve_pct, and token_mint directly and feed them into its trading logic. No decoding, no schema definitions, no error handling for unknown instruction formats. The same structured output is available for Raydium swaps, Jupiter aggregated swaps, liquidity events, and pool creation events — each with program-specific fields relevant to trading decisions.
This is what we mean by lower execution latency. It's not that the wire is faster — it's that your bot spends zero time on deserialization and goes straight to what it was built to do: trade.
Server-side filtering: program-level vs basic
Both QuickNode and Subglow support server-side filtering through the Yellowstone gRPC subscription API. The standard Yellowstone plugin allows subscribers to filter by commitment level, account addresses, transaction signatures, and program IDs at the subscription level. Both providers expose these filters.
Where Subglow goes further is in program-level filtering with semantic understanding. Rather than just filtering transactions that mention a program ID (which can include CPI calls, failed transactions, and irrelevant interactions), Subglow filters at the event level. When you subscribe to Pump.fun events, you receive only successfully executed buy, sell, create, and migration events — not every transaction that happens to touch the Pump.fun program address. This means less noise, less client-side filtering logic, and lower bandwidth consumption.
With QuickNode's standard Yellowstone filtering, your bot subscribes to a program ID and receives everything associated with it. Your code then needs to:
- 01Filter out failed transactions (check transaction status)
- 02Identify which instruction in the transaction is the relevant one
- 03Ignore CPI calls from other programs that invoke the target program
- 04Distinguish between event types (buy vs sell vs create vs migration)
- 05Handle edge cases like partially executed transactions
Subglow handles all of this server-side. Your subscription specifies the programs and event types you care about, and only matching, successfully executed events are delivered. The result is a cleaner data stream, less client-side code, and lower bandwidth usage — your bot processes only the events that matter for its trading strategy.
On Subglow's Pro tier, you can also add custom Program IDs beyond the built-in Pump.fun, Raydium, and Jupiter filters. This is useful for teams trading on newer DEXs or interacting with custom on-chain programs. QuickNode's filtering supports any program ID at all tiers through the standard Yellowstone filter syntax, though without the semantic event-level parsing that Subglow provides.
Frequently asked questions
Do Subglow and QuickNode use the same gRPC protocol?
Yes. Both Subglow and QuickNode run the standard Yellowstone gRPC plugin (Dragon's Mouth) maintained by Triton One. You can connect to either provider using the same @triton-one/yellowstone-grpc or yellowstone-grpc-client libraries. The key difference is in what happens after the data leaves the validator: QuickNode delivers raw protobuf with Borsh-encoded instruction data, while Subglow delivers pre-parsed JSON with human-readable fields, event types, and native token amounts.
How much does QuickNode Solana gRPC cost compared to Subglow?
This changed on 1 June 2026, and most comparisons online are still out of date. QuickNode now includes Solana Yellowstone gRPC at no extra access charge on the Scale plan ($499/mo) and Business; on the cheaper Build and Accelerate plans it remains a paid add-on. There is no separate gRPC line item on Scale or above — instead, streaming usage is metered in bytes against your API credit pool, so the effective cost depends on how much data your filters let through. Subglow starts at $99/mo for filtered Yellowstone gRPC with pre-parsed JSON, flat, with no credit metering, so the bill does not move with volume. The honest summary: QuickNode's entry point for included gRPC is $499/mo plus metered usage against roughly $99/mo fixed.
Can I migrate from QuickNode to Subglow without rewriting my bot?
Yes. Because both providers use the standard Yellowstone gRPC protocol, migration is straightforward. You change the endpoint URL from your QuickNode gRPC endpoint to grpc.subglow.io and swap your API key. No client library changes, no protocol changes, no subscription logic changes. The only difference in your code is how you handle the incoming data — Subglow sends pre-parsed JSON, so you can remove your Borsh deserialization and protobuf decoding pipeline.
Why does pre-parsed JSON reduce execution latency?
When you receive raw protobuf from a standard Yellowstone provider like QuickNode, your bot must decode the Protocol Buffer envelope, extract the Borsh-encoded instruction data, deserialize the Borsh bytes into a usable struct, map instruction discriminators to event types, resolve account indices, and convert raw lamport values. This pipeline typically adds 15–30ms of execution latency. Subglow performs all of this parsing server-side before delivery, so your bot receives structured JSON and can execute trading logic immediately — eliminating that 15–30ms overhead entirely.
Is QuickNode better than Subglow for multi-chain projects?
Yes. QuickNode is a general-purpose infrastructure provider supporting 80+ blockchains including Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, Base, and Solana. If your project requires RPC endpoints, gRPC streaming, and marketplace add-ons across multiple chains, QuickNode provides a unified platform. Subglow is purpose-built exclusively for Solana gRPC streaming — it does one thing and does it well. If your use case is Solana trading bots, snipers, or copy-trading systems, Subglow offers lower execution latency, pre-parsed output, and significantly lower cost.
What happens to my QuickNode credits when I hit high volume?
QuickNode uses a credit-based billing system where API calls consume credits from your monthly allocation, and since gRPC streaming is metered in bytes rather than per call, an unfiltered or broadly filtered subscription can consume credits quickly. High-activity periods therefore cost more, which is exactly when a trading bot is busiest. When the allocation runs out you upgrade, pay overages, or get throttled. Subglow uses flat monthly pricing — no credits, no per-request charges, no overage fees. Whether you process 1 million or 100 million transactions per month, your bill stays the same. The practical difference is not just the headline number but whether you can forecast it.
Continue reading
QuickNode alternatives — 8 options
The whole shortlist rather than just us, with the trade-off named for each and the multi-chain case for staying put.
Read more →Solana gRPC providers compared
Full comparison of QuickNode, Chainstack, Helius, Solana Tracker, and Subglow.
Read more →Subglow vs Helius
Both Yellowstone wire-compatible — pricing model, payload format, regions, and replay.
Read more →Subglow vs Chainstack
Both use Yellowstone gRPC. Compare pricing, filtering, and pre-parsed output.
Read more →Yellowstone gRPC tutorial
Step-by-step guide to connecting to Yellowstone gRPC on Solana with code examples.
Read more →Documentation
Full API reference, authentication, filtering, and integration guides.
Read more →// Ready to switch?
Same Yellowstone protocol.
Lower execution latency.
A fraction of the cost.
Migrate from QuickNode in two lines of code. No client library changes, no protocol differences.
Paid plans start at $99/mo with flat monthly pricing.
Subglow ships JSON-RPC on the same key. No separate plan.
Every Subglow paid plan includes a flat-priced JSON-RPC endpoint on the same API key you use for gRPC. Reads on rpc.subglow.io, streams on grpc.subglow.io:443. sendTransaction has a dedicated daily bucket, so heavy read traffic never starves your submits.
Credit-based metering with per-method multipliers. Since 1 June 2026 Yellowstone gRPC is included on Scale and Business, but streaming is metered in bytes against the same credit pool as your reads.
Flat daily quota per plan, no per-method multipliers. sendTx in its own bucket. Same API key as gRPC.