Smart Contract 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.
Smart Contract Framework
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 limitsFoundry MIT OSS Free $0 unlimited builds; Hardhat MIT OSS Free $0; Truffle LGPL OSS Free $0. Enterprise support Nethermind $2k/mo, 24h SLA. No overage - local CPU only.
Local Blockchain / Testing Infra for contracts
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 limitsAnvil MIT OSS Free unlimited tx, 0 CU, local fork. Hardhat Network MIT OSS Free. Tenderly Free 100 tx/mo simulations, Pro $50/mo 1,000 tx incl $0.05/tx over, Enterprise $500/mo 10k tx.
Deployment Platform / RPC Provider
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsAlchemy Free 300M CU/mo, 3 apps, Growth $49/mo 1B CU $1.20/1M CU over, Scale $199/mo 5B CU. Infura Free 100k req/day, Developer $50/mo 5M req $0.50/1M over.
Node RPC for deployment (Dedicated)
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsQuickNode Free 10M credits/mo, Discovery $49/mo 100M credits $0.50/1M over, Growth $99/mo 300M. Alchemy Free 300M CU as above. Chainstack Developer $49/mo 50M req $1/1M over.
Security Scanning - Static Analysis
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 limitsSlither AGPL-3 OSS Free unlimited scans. Solhint MIT OSS Free. CertiK Skynet $5,000/mo continuous 1k scans incl $0.50/scan over. MythX Free 10 scans/mo, Pro $50/mo 100 scans $0.50/scan over.
Security Scanning - Symbolic / Dynamic (MythX / Mythril)
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 limitsMythril MIT OSS Free unlimited local. MythX Free 10 scans/mo, Standard $50/mo 100 scans $0.50/scan over, Pro $250/mo 1k scans $0.25/scan over. Diligence Fuzzing $3k/mo unlimited.
Upgrade Management / Proxy (Transparent / UUPS / Beacon)
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 limitsHardhat Upgrades MIT OSS Free. OZ Defender Free 1 admin, 1 relayer, 100 tx/mo, Pro $99/mo 10 admins 10 relayers 5k tx $0.10/tx over, Enterprise $499/mo 100 admins unlimited.
Monitoring for contracts / Alerting & Incident
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsTenderly Free 100 tx/mo tracked, 10 alerts, Pro $50/mo 1k tx 100 alerts $0.05/tx over. OZ Sentinel Free 10 sentinels. Forta Free community bot, Premium $199/mo/bot 1M scans $0.05/1k over.
Secrets Management for private keys (dev)
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 MPL-2.0 Free self-host unlimited secrets. Doppler Free 5 users 50 secrets, Starter $12/user/mo 500 secrets $0.05/secret over. AWS Secrets $0.40/secret/mo $0.05/10k API calls. HCP Vault $0.03/secret/mo.
CI/CD for contracts
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 private, 500MB storage, Pro $4/user/mo 3k mins $0.008/min over. GitLab Free 400 mins/mo. CircleCI Free 6k mins/mo, Team $15/mo 30k mins $0.008/min over.
Audit Logs WORM for contract upgrades
Controls who can do what inside your admin tooling. Limits blast radius if an account is compromised.Pricing & free-tier limitsS3 Free Tier 5GB 12mo then $0.023/GB/mo, Object Lock $0 extra, PUT $0.005/1k. Glacier Deep $0.00099/GB/mo 180d min. MinIO AGPL OSS Free self-host. Wasabi $6.99/TB/mo WORM immutable included 90d min.
Gas Profiling & Optimization
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 limitshardhat-gas-reporter MIT Free unlimited, forge gas report Free OSS. Tenderly Gas Profiler Free 100 sims/mo included, Pro $50/mo 1k sims $0.05/sim over. No extra infra.
Contract Documentation (NatSpec / Doc gen)
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 limitssolidity-docgen MIT OSS Free unlimited contracts. Docusaurus MIT OSS Free self-host/Vercel free tier. GitBook Free 1 space, Starter $8/user/mo unlimited, Pro $15/user/mo $0 over.
Formal Verification Tooling
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 limitsHEVM BSD OSS Free unlimited proofs. SMTChecker Free built-in. Certora Free trial 10 specs, Pro $500/mo 100 properties $100/spec over, Enterprise $5k/mo unlimited. Runtime Verification $10k/project one-time.
Contract Library Management (OpenZeppelin / Solmate)
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 limitsOpenZeppelin MIT OSS Free unlimited, Solmate MIT OSS Free. NPM Free unlimited public. OZ Enterprise Support $199/mo 24h SLA, upgrade guidance incl. Private NPM $7/user/mo.
Multi-sig Wallet for Admin & Treasury
Controls who can do what inside your admin tooling. Limits blast radius if an account is compromised.Pricing & free-tier limitsSafe GPL-3 OSS Free, no fee gas only. Fireblocks MPC $2,500/mo 10 users $0.10/tx over, add-on HSM $500/mo. Ledger Enterprise $1,500/mo 10 users. Trezor/Ledger HW $70-$250 one-time.
Private Key Management HSM (Dev Signing)
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 limitsLocal mnemonic Free $0 risk. AWS KMS $1/key/mo $0.03/10k sign ops $0.001/req over. GCP Cloud HSM $1.45/key version/mo $0.03/op over. Ledger Vault Team $99/mo 3 users, Enterprise $1,500/mo.
Test Coverage Tool
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 limitssolidity-coverage MIT Free unlimited. Foundry `forge coverage` Free OSS. Codecov Free 1 user private, Team $12/user/mo unlimited uploads $0.0001/upload over. Coveralls Free OSS.
Dependency & Vulnerability Scanning for contracts
Keeps you secure and compliant with regulations. Required for enterprise customers and handling sensitive data.Pricing & free-tier limitsnpm audit Free unlimited. Dependabot Free unlimited. Snyk Free 200 scans/mo 10k req, Team $49/mo 1k scans $0.20/scan over, Business $98/user/mo. CertiK dependency add-on $500/mo.
How this small scale smart contract development checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a small scale smart contract 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.