Protocol Development — small scale stack.
For each requirement below, pick the option that fits your build — recommended first, then free and cheaper alternatives — or skip what your project doesn't need. Tap the info icon next to any requirement to see why it matters.
Node Hosting - L1 Archive Nodes (Ethereum / Erigon / Besu)
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsAlchemy Free: 300M compute units/mo (CU), 10 req/sec burst; Growth $49/mo = 1.5B CU incl, overage $0.15/1M CU, $0.30/1M after 10B. Ankr Free: 500M req/mo, 30 req/sec, Pro $15/mo = 10B req/mo + $0.05/1M over. QuickNode Free: 10M API credits/mo (10 req/sec), Growth $49/mo = 30M credits, $0.20/1M credits over. Infura Free: 100k req/day (3M/mo), Team $50/mo = 500k req/day (15M/mo), $0.10/1k req over (~$100/1M). Snapshot storage extra S3 $0.023/GB-mo (1.8TB = $41/mo).
L2 Rollup Node Hosting (Arbitrum / OP Stack / Base / Custom L2)
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsAlchemy Free L2 incl in 300M CU (L2 tx = 15 CU vs L1 250 CU) ~ 1.2M L2 eth_call Free. Growth L2 $49/mo = 1.5B CU = 6M L2 calls, $0.15/1M CU over. Ankr L2 Free 500M req/mo, Pro $15/mo 10B. QuickNode L2 Free 10M credits, Growth $49/mo 30M credits $0.20/1M over. Infura L2 Free 100k req/day, Team $50/mo 500k/day. Extra: L2 state diff storage S3 $0.023/GB-mo, L2 snapshot 800GB = $18.40/mo.
Validator Bare Metal Hosting
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsEquinix Metal c3.medium.x86 (32c/64GB/2x480GB SSD) $500/mo flat, unlimited transfer, 99.9% SLA, no overage. Hetzner AX161 $200/mo (~$0.27/hr) + €20 setup one-time, 128GB RAM, 2x1TB NVMe, 20TB traffic free, €1/TB over. AWS c6i.32xlarge $5.44/hr = ~$3,970/mo on-demand, $1,588/mo 3yr reserved, plus EBS io2 $0.125/GB-mo + $0.065 per 1k IOPS. OVH Advance-2 $180/mo alternative. Self-host power $80-150/mo + colocation.
Consensus Layer Client Hosting (Beacon Chain - Lighthouse/Prysm)
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsLighthouse, Prysm, Teku, Lodestar, Nimbus all Free OSS Apache2/GPL, $0 license. Infra: bare metal $200-500/mo, snapshot S3 $0.023/GB-mo (CL snapshot ~120GB = $2.76/mo, CL state 400GB = $9.20/mo), egress $0.09/GB first 10TB, $0.085 next 40TB. Managed consensus: Blox $0.05/validator/day = $15/validator/mo, 1000 validators ~$500/mo volume discount. Checkpoint sync Free.
Execution Layer Client Hosting (Geth / Reth / Nethermind / Erigon)
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsGeth, Reth, Nethermind, Erigon, Besu all Free OSS. Self-host: $200-500/mo bare metal, 2TB NVMe required for archive. Snapshot hosting S3 Standard $0.023/GB-mo (Geth archive 1.8TB = $41.40/mo, Erigon 2.5TB = $57.50/mo), S3 IA $0.0125/GB-mo 50% cheaper. QuickNode managed Geth archive $49/mo incl 30M credits, over $0.20/1M. PUT $0.005/1k, GET $0.0004/1k.
Testnet Faucet & Testnet Node Access (Sepolia / Holesky)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsAlchemy Faucet Free: 0.5 SepoliaETH/day, 2.5/week max, no card, + 300M CU Free testnet RPC. QuickNode Faucet Free: 0.1 SepoliaETH/day + 10M credits Free. Chainlink Faucet Free 0.5 ETH Holesky/Sepolia + 100 LINK. Ankr Testnet Free unlimited 500M req/mo. Self-hosted testnet node same infra $200/mo but chain data free. Infura Testnet incl Free 100k req/day. Alchemy private testnet $49/mo = 1.5B CU. Faucet overage via PoW faucet free unlimited.
Block Explorer Self-Hosting (Transactions / Blocks / Beacon)
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsBlockscout OSS Free MIT, self-host $50-150/mo (8 vCPU 16GB VPS, 500GB SSD). Otterscan Free OSS (requires Erigon archive ~2TB). Etherscan Free: 5 calls/sec, 100k calls/day, Pro $199/mo = 20 calls/sec, 1.5M calls/day, over $0.50/100k calls. Blockscout Cloud Starter $100/mo = 1M req/mo, Pro $400/mo = 10M req/mo, $15/1M over. Self-hosted DB Postgres ~10GB per 1M txs.
Node Monitoring & Metrics Dashboard
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsGrafana Cloud Free: 10k active metrics series, 50GB logs/mo, 50GB traces, 3 users. Pro $8/user/mo + $8/1k series/mo over, logs $0.50/GB over. Prometheus OSS Free + 60GB disk per 15 days metrics. Datadog Infra Pro $15/host/mo (billed annually), custom metrics $1.50/GB, logs $0.10/GB ingest first 1GB free, APM $31/host/mo. Self-host Grafana 3-node $0 license + $60/mo VPS for 3 hosts.
Secrets Management - Validator Keys & Mnemonics
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsVault OSS Free MPL, Cloud Free: 25 secrets, HCP Starter $0.03/secret/mo. Infisical OSS Free, Cloud Free 100 secrets. AWS CloudHSM $1.88/hr = ~$1,380/mo per HSM cluster (2 HSMs) + $0.50/10k ops over, backup $1.25/GB-mo. GCP KMS $0.06/key/mo + $0.03/10k ops, HSM $1.15/key/mo. Azure Managed HSM $1.45/hr = $1,055/mo. YubiHSM 2 one-time $650 hardware 5yr life.
CI/CD Pipeline for Protocol Upgrades (Hardforks)
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Actions Free: 2,000 mins/mo Linux (500MB Package storage), public repos unlimited mins, Team $4/user/mo = 3k mins, Enterprise $21/user/mo = 50k mins included. Overage Linux $0.008/min ($8/1k mins), macOS $0.08/min. GitLab Free 400 mins/mo, Premium $29/user/mo = 10k mins. CircleCI Free 6k mins/mo, Performance $15/mo + $0.00008/credit = $6/1k mins. Woodpecker OSS Free self-host $20/mo VPS.
WORM Audit Logs for Protocol Governance Changes
Controls who can do what inside your admin tooling. Limits blast radius if an account is compromised.Pricing & free-tier limitsS3 Object Lock feature Free, storage S3 Standard $0.023/GB-mo, IA $0.0125/GB-mo, Glacier $0.004/GB-mo, Deep Archive $0.00099/GB-mo (1TB $0.99/mo). PUT $0.005/1k, GET $0.0004/1k. CloudTrail mgmt Free first trail, data events $0.10/100k events over. MinIO OSS Free AGPL + bare metal $200/mo + 4TB $0 storage. Splunk Cloud $1.35/GB/day ingest, archive WORM $0.10/GB-mo. Retention compliance 1-7yr mandated.
Distributed Validator Technology (DVT) - Obol / SSV
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsObol Charon OSS Free, cluster needs 4x 2vCPU 4GB ~$40/mo total (Hetzner CX22 $6.50x4). SSV Network fee 1.5% operator + SSV token: operator cost ~$12/mo per validator + gas. Self-host SSV $0 license + $200/mo node. Obol Cloud managed $100/mo per 10-validator cluster, $10/cluster/mo over. DVT reduces slashing risk 90%.
P2P Networking Bootstrap & LibP2P Relay Nodes
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitslibp2p OSS Free. 3x Hetzner CX22 (2 vCPU 4GB) $6.50/mo each = $19.50/mo, traffic 20TB free per node, €1/TB over. AWS Global Accelerator $18/mo fixed + $0.015/GB DT premium on top of $0.09/GB base – for low-latency P2P. Equinix Metal P2P hub $500/mo flat. Self-hosted discv5 bootstrap <100MB RAM. Bandwidth P2P 500GB-2TB/mo per node typical.
Snapshot & Chain State Cold Storage
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsS3 Standard $0.023/GB-mo (1TB archive = $23/mo, 2.5TB Erigon $57.50), PUT $0.005/1k, GET $0.0004/1k, egress $0.09/GB (R2 egress $0 free). R2 Free 10GB/mo storage, 10M Class A ops/mo, then $0.015/GB-mo + $4.50/10M Class A. Backblaze B2 Free 10GB, then $0.006/GB-mo (74% cheaper than S3), egress free 3x stored. Snapshot generation compute $200/mo spot c6i.4xlarge. Daily diff snapshots 10-50GB.
Centralized Log Aggregation for Node Fleet
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsLoki OSS Free, storage S3 $0.023/GB-mo, 500GB logs/mo retention 30d = $11.50/mo + Loki node $60/mo. Grafana Cloud Logs Free 50GB/mo then $0.50/GB over. Datadog Logs $0.10/GB ingest (first 1GB free) + $0.02/GB archive for 30d, rehydrate $0.02/GB scanned. OpenSearch self-host 2x 4vCPU 16GB $80/mo each = $160/mo handles 1TB logs/mo. ELK self-host Free + $120/mo infra.
Alerting & On-Call Incident Response (Slashing / Offline)
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsGrafana OnCall OSS Free, Cloud Free 1 team unlimited alerts. PagerDuty Free 1 user 10 services, Professional $29/user/mo (billed annually) = $34 month-to-month, includes unlimited services, 300 stakeholders. SMS $0.05/msg over. Opsgenie Free 5 users, Standard $29/user/mo. UptimeRobot Free 50 monitors 5min, Pro $7/mo 100 monitors 30-sec. BetterStack Free 10 monitors, $24/mo 50 monitors SMS.
Private Mempool & MEV Relay Hosting (Flashbots / MEV-Boost)
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsFlashbots mev-boost + relay OSS Free, infra 4 vCPU 16GB $150/mo (low-latency NY/VA), bandwidth 5TB free then $0.02/GB. BloXroute Private Tx Free tier 1 intent/day, Pro $300/mo = 1000 private tx/day, $0.50/tx over. Chainbound Bolt Free OSS. UltraSound public relay Free. Self-hosted latency boost: Equinix NY bare metal $500/mo cuts 20-30ms vs cloud, extra MEV ~5-10%.
Light Client Infrastructure & Checkpoint Sync
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsHelios, Nimbus Light Client, Lodestar LC all Free OSS, binary <50MB, runs on $5-20/mo VPS (1 vCPU 1GB RAM) or Raspberry Pi. Self-host $5/mo (Vultr/DO). No storage >100MB. Alchemy includes light client proofs in Free 300M CU – 1 proof ~500 CU, 600k proofs Free. QuickNode light client addon $25/mo extra on Growth $49/mo = $74/mo total. Checkpoint sync service Free.
Protocol Data Indexing Node (for Testing / Fork Simulations)
Lets users find things fast. A slow or missing search directly costs engagement and conversions.Pricing & free-tier limitsGraph Node OSS Free, infra $80/mo (4 vCPU 16GB 200GB SSD) per chain. The Graph Hosted Free 100k queries/mo, Growth $49/mo 10M queries, $4/1M over. Goldsky Free 100M events/mo, Starter $200/mo = 1B events, $0.20/1M events over. Alchemy Subgraphs Free 3 subgraphs, Growth $199/mo 50 subgraphs, 100M compute units. Ponder OSS Free, infra $60/mo. Subgraph sync initial 12-48h.
How this small scale protocol development checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a small scale protocol development build typically needs. Pick one of the four researched options — recommended, free, cheaper or paid — add your own with "Other", or skip the requirement if your project doesn't need it. Nothing is mandatory; the plan on the right tracks what you've decided so nothing gets forgotten.
Your picks are saved in this browser automatically, so you can come back anytime. Options are researched per build level and refreshed as vendors change their plans — always verify details on the provider's page before committing.