Can I use a free Solana RPC for production?

Free RPC endpoints work for prototyping, testing, and low-traffic applications. For production with real users or trading bots, you should upgrade to a paid plan that offers higher rate limits, Shredstream for lower latency, and guaranteed uptime.

Why does the default Solana public RPC not support sending transactions?

The official Solana public RPC at api.mainnet-beta.solana.com is rate-limited and has sendTransaction disabled for most callers. It is intended for basic reads only. You need a third-party RPC provider to reliably send transactions on mainnet.

What is the difference between free and paid Solana RPC?

Free tiers typically offer lower rate limits (5 to 50 RPS), no Shredstream, no gRPC streaming, and no SLA. Paid plans add higher throughput, Shredstream for 50 to 150ms faster block data, Yellowstone gRPC for real-time streaming, and priority support.

What is Shredstream and why does it matter for RPC?

Shredstream delivers block data to your RPC node 50 to 150ms faster than standard gossip by using Jito's shred relay network. This means your application sees new transactions and blocks sooner, which is critical for trading bots, arbitrage, and any latency-sensitive workflow.

Which free Solana RPC provider has the most generous free tier?

Alchemy offers the largest free tier at 30 million compute units per month. Helius offers 1 million credits with 10 RPS. Solana Tracker offers 500,000 credits at 5 RPS but also provides a completely free public endpoint with no signup required.

Can I use the free Solana Tracker RPC for AI agents and bots?

Yes. The free endpoint at rpc.solanatracker.io/public is used by the pump.fun Agent Payments SDK as a recommended free mainnet RPC. It supports both reading state and sending transactions, making it suitable for AI agents, bots, and automated workflows.

What are V2 methods and why are they cheaper?

V2 methods like getProgramAccountsV2 and getTokenAccountsByOwnerV2 are powered by RidgeDB, an indexing engine separate from the RPC node. They return the same data as standard methods but are orders of magnitude faster and cost 90% fewer credits because they bypass validator bottlenecks.

Free Solana RPC Endpoint: No Signup, No API Key Required

Q: Is there a free Solana RPC endpoint I can use without signing up?

Yes. Solana Tracker provides a free public RPC at https://rpc.solanatracker.io/public. No signup, no API key, no account required. Just use the URL directly in your code.

What Is a Solana RPC Endpoint?

An RPC endpoint is the URL your application uses to talk to the Solana blockchain. Every wallet connection, token balance lookup, transaction submission, and account query goes through an RPC node. Without one, your app can't read or write anything on-chain.

Solana provides a default public endpoint at api.mainnet-beta.solana.com, but it has severe limitations: aggressive rate limiting, sendTransaction is disabled for most callers, and latency spikes during congestion. For anything beyond basic reads, you need a third-party RPC provider.

Quick start

Replace your RPC URL with the free endpoint and you're done:

// JavaScript / TypeScript
import { Connection } from "@solana/web3.js";

const connection = new Connection(
  "https://rpc.solanatracker.io/public"
);

// That's it. Start making requests.
const slot = await connection.getSlot();

# cURL
curl https://rpc.solanatracker.io/public -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"getSlot"}'

# .env (for any framework)
SOLANA_RPC_URL=https://rpc.solanatracker.io/public
NEXT_PUBLIC_SOLANA_RPC_URL=https://rpc.solanatracker.io/public

Used by pump.fun Agent SDK

The pump.fun Agent Payments SDK lists rpc.solanatracker.io/public as a recommended free mainnet RPC for building tokenized AI agents. It supports both reading on-chain state and sending transactions, which is why it's one of only two free RPCs suggested for production agent workflows.

If you're building AI agents, trading bots, or any automated Solana workflow that needs a quick RPC without going through a signup flow, this is the endpoint to use. Drop it in your .env and move on.

Free vs. Paid: When to Upgrade

Free RPC works great for

✓ Prototyping and local development
✓ Hackathons and proof-of-concepts
✓ AI agent development and testing
✓ Low-traffic personal projects
✓ Learning Solana development

Upgrade to paid when you need

➜ Higher rate limits. Free endpoints cap at 5 RPS. Paid plans go from 60 to 500+ RPS.
➜ Shredstream. Get transaction data 50 to 150ms faster via Jito's shred relay. Included on all paid plans from Solana Tracker.
➜ Yellowstone gRPC. Real-time streaming with server-side filtering. Available on Business plans and above.
➜ V2 methods. getProgramAccountsV2 and getTokenAccountsByOwnerV2 powered by RidgeDB. 10x faster, 90% fewer credits.
➜ Reliability guarantees. Uptime SLAs, priority support, and no shared-endpoint congestion.

Free Solana RPC Providers Compared

Every major Solana RPC provider offers some form of free access. Here's what you actually get. Updated May 2026.

	Solana Tracker	Helius	Alchemy	QuickNode	dRPC
Free tier	No signup required Public endpoint + 500K credits	1M credits/mo Signup required	30M CU/mo Signup required	10M credits/mo Signup required	50M CU/mo Signup required
No-signup endpoint	Yes	No	No	No	No
sendTransaction	Yes (free tier)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Public nodes only
Rate limit (free)	5 RPS	10 RPS	~30 RPS	~25 RPS	30 RPS
Cheapest paid plan	€35/mo 15M credits, 60 RPS	$49/mo 10M credits, 50 RPS	PAYG $0.45/1M CU	$49/mo 10M credits	PAYG ~$0.06/1M req
Shredstream	All paid plans	Pro plan only	Not available	Not specified	Not available
Yellowstone gRPC	Business plan+ €399/mo	Business plan+ $499/mo	From $80/TB No monthly min	From $499/mo	Not available
V2 methods	Yes (RidgeDB) 90% fewer credits	No	No	No	No
Solana-only	Yes	Yes	No (70+ chains)	No (60+ chains)	No (multi-chain)

Free tier sizes use different units across providers (credits, compute units, requests). Direct comparison requires normalizing by call type. Data from provider pricing pages as of May 2026.

Key Takeaways

Solana Tracker is the only provider with a completely free, no-signup public endpoint that supports sendTransaction. The public URL works immediately in any SDK or HTTP client. Paid plans start at €35/mo with Shredstream included on every tier.

Alchemy has the largest signed-up free tier (30M CU/mo) and is a good choice for multi-chain teams already using Alchemy on Ethereum. No Shredstream support.

Helius is the strongest Solana-native option for developers who need enhanced APIs (DAS, parsed transactions, webhooks). Free tier is smaller (1M credits) but the API depth is unmatched.

dRPC offers the largest raw free tier (50M CU) but routes to public nodes, which limits transaction sending reliability and latency.

Ready to Scale? Solana Tracker Paid Plans

When you outgrow the free endpoint, Solana Tracker's paid plans start at €35/mo with Shredstream included on every tier.

Developer

15M credits/mo · 60 RPS · Shredstream included

€35/mo

Business

100M credits/mo · 225 RPS · Shredstream + Yellowstone gRPC

€399/mo

Professional

250M credits/mo · 500 RPS · Shredstream + Yellowstone gRPC

€799/mo

Standard RPC calls cost 1 credit. V2 methods (powered by RidgeDB) also cost 1 credit but are orders of magnitude faster. Archival methods cost 10 credits. 15% off with annual billing.

Get Started View Full Pricing

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a free Solana RPC I can use without signing up? +

Yes. Solana Tracker provides a free public RPC at https://rpc.solanatracker.io/public. No signup, no API key, no account required. Just use the URL directly in your code.

Can I use the free RPC for production? +

Free RPC endpoints work well for prototyping, testing, and low-traffic applications. For production with real users or trading bots, upgrade to a paid plan for higher rate limits, Shredstream, and guaranteed uptime.

Why can't I send transactions with the default Solana RPC? +

The official Solana endpoint at api.mainnet-beta.solana.com disables sendTransaction for most callers to prevent abuse. It's rate-limited and intended for basic reads only. Any application that submits transactions needs a third-party RPC provider.

What is Shredstream? +

Shredstream uses Jito's shred relay to deliver block data to your RPC node 50 to 150ms faster than standard gossip. Your application sees new transactions and blocks sooner. Critical for trading bots, arbitrage, and any latency-sensitive workflow. Included on all Solana Tracker paid plans.

What are V2 methods? +

V2 methods like getProgramAccountsV2 and getTokenAccountsByOwnerV2 are powered by RidgeDB, an indexing engine decoupled from the RPC node. They return the same data as standard methods but are dramatically faster and cost 90% fewer credits. No validator bottlenecks, no scan overhead. Exclusive to Solana Tracker.

Can I use the free endpoint for AI agents and bots? +

Yes. The free endpoint at rpc.solanatracker.io/public is listed in the pump.fun Agent Payments SDK as a recommended free mainnet RPC. It supports reading state and sending transactions, making it suitable for AI agents, bots, and automated workflows during development and low-traffic production use.

Which provider has the biggest free tier? +

By raw volume, dRPC offers 50M CU/mo and Alchemy offers 30M CU/mo (both require signup). But Solana Tracker is the only one that offers a completely open endpoint with no signup at all. Depends on whether you optimize for volume or friction.

Does the free endpoint support WebSockets? +

The free public endpoint supports standard HTTP JSON-RPC requests including sendTransaction. For WebSocket subscriptions and real-time streaming, you'll want a paid plan which includes WebSocket connections and optionally Yellowstone gRPC.