Chromia
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Compare · every figure sourced · 1 Nov 2026

Chromia vs Ethereum vs Solana.

Three public chains, compared on what matters when your app stores and queries data. Every figure links to its source. Fees and storage prices move with token prices and gas, so we read those live.

Chromia · app hosting≈$90per week, 1 container unit, 16 GB · from economy_chain
Ethereum · gas now0.04 gweiETH transfer ≈$0.002
Ethereum · store 1 KB≈$0.0632 new storage slots × 20,000 gas
Solana · store 1 KB≈$0.56refundable deposit · base fee ≈$0.0005

Figures read 1 Nov 2026, 14:17 UTC. Updating from live sources…

Chromia, Ethereum and Solana compared, 1 November 2026
MeasureChromiaEthereum (L1)Solana
Fee a user pays per transaction$0 for usersNo gas. The app’s developer leases hosting instead.[1]≈$0.002 plain ETH transfer live21,000 gas × today’s gas price (0.04 gwei). Across all transactions on 1 Nov 2026: 24 h average $0.14, median $0.02.[3][4]≈$0.0005 base fee live5,000 lamports per signature, plus an optional priority fee that changes with demand.[8]
Cost to store data$0.10 per MB · ≈$0.0001 per KB, paid once (files, Filehub)Filehub stores files for a one-time $0.10 per MB, kept at least 30 years; per KB that is $0.10 ÷ 1,024 ≈ $0.0001.App data lives in a leased container instead: ≈$90 per week per container unit live (16 GB storage plus 2 GB RAM and 0.5 vCPU). Derived: that price ÷ 16,384 MB = ≈$0.0055 per MB per week, compute included, so it is not a like-for-like per-KB price.[2][1][22]≈$0.06 per KB · ≈$64 per MB live20,000 gas per new 32-byte storage slot, paid once at today’s gas price. Scales linearly with the gas price. Excludes calldata and the base transaction.[5]≈$0.56 per KB · ≈$506 per MB liveA refundable deposit (the rent-exempt minimum), returned when the account is closed. Rent collection is disabled.[9]
Relational / SQL queryingYes: tables and SQL-like queriesRell queries compile to SQL on PostgreSQL, and the nodes serve them. Run one on mainnet now.[6]No native query languageState is a key/value trie, read by key. Rich queries need an indexer such as The Graph. (Our reading: ethereum.org documents no query language; it points to indexers.)[10][11]No SQL: account readsThe RPC call getProgramAccounts filters accounts by bytes or size. Rich queries need an indexer. (Our reading: no SQL interface is documented.)[12]
How data is storedOwn chain and own database per appEach dapp runs its own blockchain in its own container. State and history sit in PostgreSQL on every node of its cluster.[7][13]One global state, kept foreverEvery node keeps the state in a Merkle Patricia trie. Blob data (EIP-4844) is deleted after about 18 days.[10][14]Accounts, up to 10 MiB eachProgram data lives in accounts. Full transaction history is archived outside the validators.[9][15]
Developer languageRellOne language for tables, operations and queries.[6]Solidity, Vyper[16]RustWith Anchor, Pinocchio or native Rust.[17]
Finality≈1–2 s, final on commitA transaction waits at most 1 s for its block, then the block is final once more than two-thirds of the nodes sign it (EBFT). No reorgs, no extra confirmations to wait for.[13][18][24]≈13–15 minTwo epochs of 32 twelve-second slots (≈12.8 min); ethereum.org says about 15 minutes. Single-slot finality is still on the roadmap.[19][20]≈150 ms targetAlpenglow went live on mainnet on 21 Oct 2026. Before it, finality took about 12.8 s. 150 ms is Solana’s target, not our measurement.[21]
Block time≈2 s busy · 30 s idleMeasured on 11 mainnet chains, 1 Nov 2026: busy chains (economy_chain, the anchoring chains) median 2.1 s; idle chains build an empty block every ≈30 s.[23][24]12 s slots[19]≈0.215 s per slotMeasured from Solana’s public RPC, 1 Nov 2026.[23]

How to read this

Solana finalizes faster since Alpenglow, and at today’s prices a single transaction on Ethereum or Solana costs a fraction of a cent. Chromia’s difference is the data model: apps keep data in real tables, query it like SQL, and their users pay no gas. The app pays a weekly lease instead, so cost is predictable rather than per action.

Live figures: Chromia’s hosting price comes from create_container_cost on economy_chain, priced with Chromia’s on-chain CHR/USD and ETH/USD oracle. Ethereum gas comes from eth_gasPrice on a public Ethereum RPC. The SOL price comes from a public price API (CoinGecko, Coinbase or Kraken, whichever answers first), and the Solana deposit from getMinimumBalanceForRentExemption on a public Solana RPC. If a live source doesn’t answer, the last complete reading is used and the date under the strip says so.

Not sourced, so not shown: a typical Solana priority fee (the public RPC reported minimums of zero), and a per-KB price for Chromia app data (the lease bundles compute and storage).

Sources

  1. docs.chromia.com · Hosting. …no gas fees, meaning users don't pay for transactions. Instead of gas fees, developers lease containers…” · “One SCU provides 2 GB of RAM, 0.5 vCPU, 16 GB of storage”; weekly target cost ≈90 USD (read 1 Nov 2026)
  2. docs.chromia.com · Filehub overview. The current price is $0.10 per MB for perpetual storage. Your files will remain accessible for a minimum of 30 years. (read 1 Nov 2026)
  3. ethereum.org · Gas and fees. A standard ETH transfer uses 21,000 gas (read 1 Nov 2026)
  4. Blockchair · Ethereum stats API. average_transaction_fee_usd_24h 0.143 · median_transaction_fee_usd_24h 0.022 (read 1 Nov 2026, 14:18 UTC)
  5. EIP-2200 · SSTORE gas metering. SSTORE_SET_GAS: 20000” (writing a new, previously zero storage slot) (EIP status Final; read 1 Nov 2026)
  6. docs.chromia.com · What is Rell. Rell compiles into optimized SQL queries that run on Chromia's PostgreSQL-backed blockchain. (read 1 Nov 2026)
  7. docs.chromia.com · Platform architecture. each dapp operates on its own unique blockchain(s)… (read 1 Nov 2026)
  8. solana.com · Fees. a base fee of 5,000 lamports per signature and an optional prioritization fee (read 1 Nov 2026)
  9. solana.com · Account structure. Minimum balance “proportional to the account's data size… ongoing rent collection is disabled”; max account size 10 MiB (read 1 Nov 2026)
  10. ethereum.org · Merkle Patricia Trie. State lives in a trie stored in a flat key/value database (page updated 25 Feb 2026)
  11. ethereum.org · Data and analytics. The Graph is an indexing protocol that provides an easy way to query blockchain data… (read 1 Nov 2026)
  12. solana.com · getProgramAccounts. Returns accounts owned by the specified program, optionally filtered by data content or size. (read 1 Nov 2026)
  13. docs.chromia.com · Node architecture. Nodes store blockchain data in PostgreSQL; consensus is EBFT; a final block stays final (read 1 Nov 2026)
  14. ethereum.org · Danksharding. Blob data “is automatically deleted after… about 18 days (page updated 24 Jun 2026)
  15. Anza docs · RPC transaction history. Long transaction history is kept in an external store, not in validators’ ledgers (read 1 Nov 2026)
  16. ethereum.org · Smart contract languages. The two most active and maintained languages are: Solidity, Vyper (read 1 Nov 2026)
  17. solana.com · Programs. Programs are written in Rust: “the Anchor, Pinocchio, and native Rust development approaches (read 1 Nov 2026)
  18. chromia.com · home page. ~2s to finalize a block (read 1 Nov 2026)
  19. ethereum.org · Proof-of-stake. Slots of 12 seconds, epochs of 32 slots (page updated 7 Oct 2026)
  20. ethereum.org · Single-slot finality. It takes about 15 minutes for an Ethereum block to finalize.” Single-slot finality is listed as a roadmap item (page updated 23 Jul 2026)
  21. solana.com · Alpenglow. Alpenglow is live on mainnet. It activated in epoch 1064… October 21, 2026…” Under TowerBFT finality took about 12.8 s; Alpenglow targets roughly 150 ms (read 1 Nov 2026)
  22. Chromia mainnet · economy_chain, live. create_container_cost for 1 container unit, 1 week, and get_price_oracle_rates (CHR and ETH in USD). Run it yourself with the live demo. (live; 5,410 CHR ≈ $90 on 1 Nov 2026)
  23. Measured by us · block and slot times. Chromia: median interval over the last 50 blocks of each chain: economy_chain 2.10 s, system_anchoring 2.11 s, cluster_anchoring_system 2.09 s; directory_chain, token_chain, price_oracle_chain, mines_of_dalarnia, filehub, colorpool_dex, dapp_aggregator 30.0–30.1 s; my_neighbor_alice 33 s. Solana: getRecentPerformanceSamples on Solana’s public RPC = 0.215 s per slot, ≈1,456 tx/s (Chromia measured 1 Nov 2026, 16:24 UTC; Solana 14:21–14:23 UTC)
  24. Postchain source (gitlab.com/chromaway) · block strategy and EBFT commit. maxtxdelay 1000 ms and maxblocktime 30000 ms by default; mainnet chains set mininterblockinterval 1000 ms. A block commits once getBFTRequiredSignatureCount(n) = n − (n−1)/3 nodes have signed it (commit ca8d940, 26 Oct 2026; read 1 Nov 2026)