RPC Aggregator vs Dedicated RPC Nodes: Which is Best?

In the rapidly evolving world of blockchain and Web3 applications, the choice of Remote Procedure Call (RPC) infrastructure can make or break the performance, reliability, and cost-efficiency of your project. Developers and businesses often face a critical decision: should they rely on dedicated RPC nodes or leverage RPC aggregators? Each approach has its strengths and trade-offs, and understanding these can help you optimize your blockchain interactions for speed, uptime, and scalability.

Understanding RPC Infrastructure in Blockchain

Before diving into the comparison, it’s essential to grasp what RPC nodes and RPC aggregators are and how they function within blockchain ecosystems.

What Are Dedicated RPC Nodes?

Dedicated RPC nodes are individual blockchain nodes that provide a direct interface for applications to interact with the blockchain network. These nodes run the full blockchain client software, maintaining a complete copy of the blockchain and processing requests such as querying balances, sending transactions, or fetching smart contract data.

Running your own dedicated RPC node offers full control over the node’s configuration, security, and performance. However, this approach requires significant technical expertise, ongoing maintenance, and infrastructure costs to ensure the node remains synchronized and responsive. Moreover, dedicated nodes can be tailored to specific needs, allowing developers to implement custom features or optimizations that may not be available through third-party services. This level of customization can be particularly advantageous for projects that require unique transaction handling or specialized data retrieval methods.

What Are RPC Aggregators?

RPC aggregators, on the other hand, are services that route your RPC requests across multiple underlying providers and nodes. They use advanced auto-routing algorithms to select the best-performing endpoint based on latency, availability, and cost. This multi-provider approach enhances reliability by providing failover and load balancing capabilities.

By abstracting the complexity of managing multiple nodes, RPC aggregators allow developers to focus on building their applications while benefiting from improved uptime and optimized request routing. Additionally, aggregators often come with built-in analytics tools that provide insights into request performance and error rates, enabling developers to make data-driven decisions about their application's architecture. This can lead to more efficient resource allocation and better overall user experience, as developers can quickly identify and address potential bottlenecks in their applications.

Key Differences Between RPC Aggregators and Dedicated Nodes

Reliability and Redundancy

One of the most significant advantages of RPC aggregators is their inherent redundancy. By connecting to multiple RPC providers, aggregators can automatically route traffic away from nodes experiencing downtime or high latency. This failover capability dramatically reduces the risk of service interruptions.

In contrast, dedicated nodes represent a single point of failure. If your node goes down due to hardware issues, network problems, or blockchain reorganization, your application’s RPC requests will fail until the node is restored. While you can mitigate this risk by running multiple dedicated nodes, this increases operational complexity and cost.

Latency and Performance

RPC aggregators optimize request routing by selecting the fastest and most responsive node from their pool, often distributed across multiple regions and cloud providers. This multi-region routing reduces latency and improves user experience, especially for globally distributed applications.

Dedicated nodes may offer low latency if strategically deployed close to your user base, but maintaining such infrastructure globally is resource-intensive. Aggregators’ multi-cloud and multi-region strategies provide a scalable solution to latency challenges.

Cost Considerations

Running dedicated RPC nodes involves upfront hardware investments, ongoing maintenance, and operational expenses such as bandwidth and storage. For startups and projects with limited resources, these costs can be prohibitive.

RPC aggregators typically offer pay-as-you-go pricing models, enabling cost optimization through auto-routing to the cheapest available providers without sacrificing performance. According to recent studies, startups have reduced RPC costs by up to 40% by leveraging aggregator solutions that dynamically balance cost and reliability.

Scalability and Maintenance

Dedicated nodes require continuous monitoring, software updates, and scaling efforts to handle increasing API call volumes. Scaling to millions of API calls demands robust infrastructure and expertise, which can divert focus from core product development.

RPC aggregators handle scaling transparently, orchestrating API calls across multiple providers and managing upgrades behind the scenes. This allows Web3 applications to grow without worrying about node management complexities.

When to Choose Dedicated RPC Nodes

Despite the benefits of RPC aggregators, dedicated nodes remain the preferred choice in certain scenarios:

• Maximum Control and Customization: Projects requiring custom node configurations, specialized indexing, or private blockchain forks benefit from dedicated nodes.
• Security and Privacy: Handling sensitive data or operating in regulated environments may necessitate exclusive control over RPC infrastructure.
• High Throughput Needs: Applications with extremely high transaction volumes might optimize performance by fine-tuning dedicated nodes.

In these cases, teams must be prepared to invest in the necessary infrastructure and expertise to maintain node health and uptime.

When RPC Aggregators Are the Better Choice

For most Web3 projects, especially startups and decentralized applications (dApps), RPC aggregators offer compelling advantages:

• Improved Reliability: Automatic failover and load balancing reduce downtime and improve user experience.
• Cost Efficiency: Dynamic routing to multiple providers helps optimize expenses without compromising performance.
• Ease of Use: Simplified integration and reduced operational overhead accelerate development cycles.
• Multi-Cloud and Multi-Region Support: Aggregators leverage platforms like Google MCP (Multi-Cloud Proxy) to enhance scalability and resilience.

These benefits make RPC aggregators a future-proof solution as blockchain infrastructure continues to evolve.

Case Study: Multi-Provider RPC Routing in Action

Consider a decentralized finance (DeFi) application that requires near-constant blockchain interaction with minimal latency. Using a single dedicated node, the app experienced frequent outages during peak traffic, leading to transaction delays and user frustration.

After switching to an RPC aggregator, the application gained access to multiple RPC providers with automatic failover and load balancing. This transition resulted in a 99.99% uptime guarantee, a 30% reduction in average RPC latency, and a 35% decrease in infrastructure costs due to optimized routing.

This example highlights how multi-provider RPC routing is becoming the new standard for Web3 reliability and performance.

Addressing Common Concerns About RPC Aggregators

Is There a Risk of Vendor Lock-In?

Leading RPC aggregators support multi-provider architectures, allowing developers to switch or add providers seamlessly. This flexibility mitigates vendor lock-in risks and promotes a healthy, competitive RPC ecosystem.

How Does RPC Auto-Routing Work?

RPC auto-routing intelligently distributes requests based on real-time metrics like latency, error rates, and cost. This ensures that each RPC call is handled by the optimal provider, improving overall application responsiveness and reliability.

Can Aggregators Handle High API Call Volumes?

Yes. Aggregators are designed to scale horizontally by orchestrating millions of API calls across multiple providers. This capability is critical for dApps and blockchain services experiencing rapid user growth.

Conclusion: Making the Right Choice for Your Blockchain Project

Choosing between dedicated RPC nodes and RPC aggregators depends on your project’s specific needs, budget, and technical capacity. Dedicated nodes offer unmatched control and customization but come with higher operational overhead and risk of downtime.

RPC aggregators provide a resilient, cost-effective, and scalable alternative that simplifies infrastructure management while enhancing performance. For most Web3 developers and businesses aiming for reliability and growth, leveraging an RPC aggregator represents the best path forward.

As blockchain infrastructure continues to mature, embracing multi-provider RPC routing and advanced auto-routing technologies will be essential to building robust, user-friendly decentralized applications.

Ready to streamline your Web3 project's infrastructure and focus on innovation rather than maintenance? Start building with Uniblock today and join the 2,000+ developers who are already enjoying the benefits of our advanced RPC routing and multi-provider orchestration platform. With Uniblock, you can maximize uptime, minimize latency, and cut down on costs, all while avoiding vendor lock-in. Embrace the future of blockchain infrastructure management and scale your dApps, tooling, or analytics with confidence.