Solana is gaining developers because it offers sub cent fees, fast confirmations, and a simpler high throughput Layer 1 for consumer apps; the caveat is that Ethereum still led recent reporting with 31,869 active deve... The strongest Solana fit is high frequency crypto: payments, trading, games, NFTs, social apps,...
Solana’s developer momentum is real, but it is not a simple story of builders abandoning Ethereum. The better framing is product fit: Solana is increasingly attractive for apps that need fast, cheap, frequent on-chain interactions, while Ethereum remains the deeper ecosystem for DeFi liquidity, institutional settlement, and broad smart-contract infrastructure.
The main reason: Solana feels easier for consumer-scale UX
For many app teams, the biggest Solana advantage is not ideology. It is user experience.
Solana’s official payments documentation emphasizes native fee abstraction, sub-cent fees, predictable fees, embedded memos, and fast confirmation times. The same documentation says funds can be secured in about 400 milliseconds and cites a median payment fee of about $0.001 per transaction [17]. For a payment app, game, trading interface, NFT mint, or social product, that cost and latency profile changes what developers can ask users to do.
On Ethereum mainnet, developers often design around the possibility that a simple user action may involve visible gas costs, waiting, or routing through a Layer 2. On Solana, the pitch is closer to: make the transaction cheap enough and fast enough that the app can feel more like a normal consumer product.
Developer growth is strong, but Ethereum is still larger
Recent developer data shows why the Solana narrative has gained traction. Reporting tied to Electric Capital’s developer tracker said Ethereum added 16,181 new developers from January to September 2025, while Solana added 11,534, making them the top two ecosystems for developer activity [2]. Another report cited Ethereum at 31,869 active developers globally and Solana at 17,708 [7].
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Solana is gaining developers because it offers sub cent fees, fast confirmations, and a simpler high throughput Layer 1 for consumer apps; the caveat is that Ethereum still led recent reporting with 31,869 active deve...
The strongest Solana fit is high frequency crypto: payments, trading, games, NFTs, social apps, and apps where every click may become an on chain transaction.
The decision is less “Solana beats Ethereum” and more “Solana optimizes for execution speed and consumer UX, while Ethereum remains stronger for settlement heavy and institution facing use cases.”
Supporting visuals
One of the main reasons behind Solana's momentum is speedOne of the main reasons behind Solana's momentum is speed. Solana processes well over 1,000 real transactions per second on average, with daily transactionSolana vs Ethereum: Why SOL is Gaining More Momentum in 2026 | DailyhuntWhy Solana is winning in 2026 — blazing speed, near-zero fees, and the use cases that are leaving Ethereum behindWhy Solana is winning in 2026 — blazing speed, near-zero fees, and the use cases that are leaving Ethereum behind.Is Solana the Future of Blockchain? Why Its Popularity Is Surging in 2026
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Solana is gaining developers because it offers sub cent fees, fast confirmations, and a simpler high throughput Layer 1 for consumer apps; the caveat is that Ethereum still led recent reporting with 31,869 active deve...
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Solana is gaining developers because it offers sub cent fees, fast confirmations, and a simpler high throughput Layer 1 for consumer apps; the caveat is that Ethereum still led recent reporting with 31,869 active deve... The strongest Solana fit is high frequency crypto: payments, trading, games, NFTs, social apps, and apps where every click may become an on chain transaction.
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The decision is less “Solana beats Ethereum” and more “Solana optimizes for execution speed and consumer UX, while Ethereum remains stronger for settlement heavy and institution facing use cases.”
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Ethereum and Solana Lead Developer Growth : A report from Electric Capital shows Ethereum added 16,181 new developers and Solana 11,534 from January to September 2025, making them the top two blockchain networks for developer activity. Ethereum's Dominance...
In 2025, Ethereum spearheaded institutional adoption, stablecoin transactions, and decentralized finance (DeFi) total value locked (TVL). Conversely, Solana excelled in user expansion, trading volume, application revenue, and low transaction fees, which bol...
- Solana consistently processes over 162 million transactions daily with median fees well under a penny, even during peak demand periods like the TRUMP-mania of January 2025. ... - Since October 2024, Solana has consistently outperformed every other blockch...
That means two things can be true at once: Solana is gaining share among new builders, and Ethereum still has the larger developer base.
The momentum did not begin in 2025. Colosseum, citing Electric Capital’s 2024 Developer Report, said Solana became the top blockchain for new developers that year, with more than 7,600 new developers choosing Solana and an 83% year-over-year increase in new developer activity [15].
Speed and throughput open up different app designs
Solana’s architecture is built around high-throughput execution. Galaxy’s Solana protocol overview says the network targets 400-millisecond slot times, typically sees 500–600 milliseconds in practice, and uses a multi-threaded approach for parallel transaction execution [29]. The same overview notes that Solana does not use a native in-protocol mempool in the way Ethereum does, with transactions routed directly to validators to support faster execution [29].
That matters because some applications only work well if users can interact many times without worrying about fees or delays. Examples include on-chain order books, high-volume decentralized exchanges, games, loyalty systems, creator apps, micropayments, and consumer wallets.
Low fees also make experimentation less punishing. If a developer wants to test a feature that triggers many small transactions, sub-cent transaction costs can make the design viable where higher or more volatile fees would force the team to keep more activity off-chain.
Solana’s fee model is simpler for frequent transactions
Solana transactions require fees paid in SOL, with two components: a base fee and an optional prioritization fee. Solana’s documentation says the base fee compensates validators for signature verification, while the prioritization fee can improve the chance that a transaction is scheduled ahead of competing transactions [18].
For developers, the practical appeal is predictability. A product team can design around many small transactions when the expected cost is tiny and comparatively stable. Solana’s payments docs explicitly frame the network around sub-cent fees and predictable fee behavior for payment use cases [17].
That does not make Solana free, and it does not remove the need to think about congestion. But it does make a different class of app feel possible: one where user actions can stay on-chain instead of being batched, delayed, or abstracted away because each interaction is too expensive.
One high-performance Layer 1 can be simpler than a rollup map
Ethereum’s scaling strategy is increasingly centered on Layer 2 rollups. Coin Metrics describes Ethereum as scaling across mainnet and Layer 2s, with rollups helping distribute demand and improve throughput efficiency while still depending on mainnet capacity [22].
That modular approach has benefits: it lets Ethereum preserve mainnet as a settlement layer while many rollups compete on execution costs and performance. But it also creates product decisions for developers. Teams may need to choose a rollup, manage cross-chain UX, think about bridges, and decide where liquidity and users are most likely to be.
Solana offers a different mental model: build on one high-throughput Layer 1. That can be appealing for teams that want fewer infrastructure choices between the app and the user.
Users, trading activity, and revenue pull developers toward Solana
Developers tend to follow where users are active and where apps can earn revenue. Reporting comparing the two ecosystems in 2025 found that Ethereum led in institutional adoption, stablecoin transactions, and DeFi total value locked, while Solana stood out in user growth, trading volume, application revenue, and low transaction fees [3].
That split helps explain the developer divide. If a team is building financial infrastructure for institutions, Ethereum’s position is still powerful. If a team is building a retail trading app, consumer wallet, game, or high-frequency marketplace, Solana’s activity profile can be more compelling.
Solana ecosystem reporting also points to heavy transaction and DEX usage. Helius reported that Solana processed more than 162 million transactions daily with median fees well under a penny in H1 2025, and said Solana commanded 81% of all DEX transactions across crypto in 2024 [6]. Those figures help explain why trading-focused and retail-facing teams keep paying attention to the network.
Why many developers still choose Ethereum
Ethereum’s advantages remain significant. The same 2025 ecosystem comparison that highlighted Solana’s user growth and low fees also said Ethereum led in institutional adoption, stablecoin settlement, and DeFi TVL [3]. Reporting on developer growth described Ethereum as the primary hub for smart-contract and DeFi development, supported by its Layer 2 ecosystem and protocol upgrades [2].
That makes Ethereum and Ethereum Layer 2s a strong choice for teams that need deep liquidity, composability with established DeFi protocols, institutional credibility, or access to the largest smart-contract developer community.
In other words, Ethereum is not losing relevance just because Solana is gaining developer mindshare. The two ecosystems are increasingly optimized for different priorities.
The practical choice for builders
A useful way to think about the decision is:
Builder priority
Solana tends to fit when...
Ethereum tends to fit when...
Fees and speed
The app needs many low-cost, fast user actions; Solana’s docs cite sub-cent fees and about 400ms payment settlement [17].
The app can use Ethereum mainnet or Layer 2s while prioritizing Ethereum’s settlement and ecosystem depth [22].
Developer ecosystem
The team wants exposure to a fast-growing developer base; Solana added 11,534 new developers from January to September 2025 in Electric Capital-linked reporting [2].
The team wants the largest active developer base; reporting cited Ethereum at 31,869 active developers globally [7].
App category
Consumer apps, payments, trading, games, NFTs, and high-frequency apps benefit from low fees and fast execution [17][29].
DeFi infrastructure, institutional settlement, and apps that need established liquidity may benefit from Ethereum’s strengths [2][3].
Scaling model
The team prefers a high-throughput Layer 1 experience.
The team is comfortable building across Ethereum mainnet and Layer 2 rollups [22].
Bottom line
Developers are increasingly choosing Solana when the product requires speed, low fees, and a simple consumer experience. That is why Solana has become especially compelling for payments, trading, games, NFTs, wallets, and other high-frequency on-chain apps.
Ethereum still has the bigger developer ecosystem, deeper institutional footprint, and stronger position in DeFi infrastructure. The real shift is not that one chain has “won.” It is that builders are becoming more precise about what they need: Solana for low-cost execution at consumer scale, Ethereum for settlement depth, liquidity, and mature smart-contract infrastructure.
In the first nine months of 2025, Solana Inc. added 11,534 new developers while Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) brought on 16,181, according to Electric Capital's developer tracker. While Ethereum still leads in total developer count with 31,869 active developers gl...
For the first time Solana has overtaken Ethereum as the 1 blockchain for new developers, according to Electric Capital's 2024 Developer Report. Out of 39,000 developers exploring crypto this year, over 7,600 chose to build on Solana. This marks an 83% year-...
Solana is built with certain features that are ideal for payments including native fee abstraction, sub-cent fees, embedded memos, predictably stable fees, and fast confirmation times. In 2025, Solana processed over $1 trillion in stablecoin volume. ... - I...
Every Solana transaction requires a fee paid in SOL. The fee has two components: a base fee and an optional prioritization fee . The base fee compensates validators for the cryptographic work of verifying signatures. The prioritization fee increases the lik...
- Ethereum is progressively scaling across mainnet and Layer-2 rollups. From early NFT and DeFi congestion to recent market volatility, gas-limit increases and upgrades like Dencun and Pectra have expanded capacity, while blob transactions have sharply redu...
- Fast transaction confirmations. Solana targets slot times of 400 milliseconds, though they typically range from 500-600ms in practice (see Solana Explorer). Solana (unlike Ethereum) does not have a native in-protocol mempool; instead, user transactions ar...
