Blockchain Infrastructure: Node Providers vs. Self-Hosting

Blockchain has moved far beyond pilots and proofs of concept. Enterprises today are running production-grade systems for finance, logistics, payments, and digital identity. As these systems mature, one question sits at the heart of every Web3 application: how do you reliably connect to the blockchain?

In the guide, we’ll unpack blockchain infrastructure, specifically, RPC providers and self-hosting approaches, compare them across cost, performance, and scalability.

#Blockchain Node Providers vs Self-Hosting

Broadly, there are two paths. The first is to use a node provider which is a managed service that gives developers instant access to multiple blockchains through API endpoints. The second is to self-host nodes on dedicated infrastructure, taking ownership of the setup, maintenance, and scaling.

At first, this may seem like a technical detail best left to engineers. But the choice shapes much more than developer workflows. It determines how predictable your costs will be, how your application performs under heavy traffic, how easily you can scale, and how much control you retain over compliance, data handling, and vendor risk.

RPC providers shine when speed is the priority. They make sense for proofs of concept, hackathons, or smaller projects where convenience matters more than efficiency. Yet as traffic grows and business requirements tighten, their limitations become clear, pricing becomes harder to forecast, performance can suffer, and flexibility is restricted.

Self-hosted nodes on dedicated servers, by contrast, demand more effort upfront but offer long-term stability. By running on dedicated bare metal servers, teams gain predictable costs, reliable performance at scale, and full control over infrastructure choices.

For projects with serious workloads, this tradeoff often defines whether a system can grow sustainably.

#What are Blockchain Node Providers?

Node or RPC node providers emerged to solve one of the biggest bottlenecks in Web3 development: running and maintaining blockchain nodes. Instead of spending days syncing clients, managing hardware, and keeping up with network upgrades, developers can connect to an API endpoint and instantly interact with a blockchain.

Services like QuickNode, Alchemy, and AllNodes popularized this model. They maintain fleets of nodes across multiple chains and package that infrastructure as a service. A developer building a DeFi dashboard, for example, doesn’t need to understand the intricacies of Solana’s validator setup or Ethereum’s archival storage. They simply point their application to a hosted RPC endpoint, and it works.

The appeal is obvious. Node providers offer speed, simplicity, and a low barrier to entry. Teams can launch products quickly without investing in DevOps or specialized blockchain infrastructure skills. For early-stage projects or experiments, this can be the difference between getting to market and stalling out.

But convenience comes with hidden tradeoffs. Because these services run in shared environments, performance is rarely consistent once traffic grows. Pricing is based on request volume and add-ons, which makes costs harder to predict over time. And flexibility is limited, you can only access the chains and configurations the provider supports. If a provider decides to discontinue support for a network, your project has little recourse.

In short, node providers are a powerful shortcut, but they are built for speed, not scale. For enterprises planning long-term, these limitations often become obstacles rather than advantages.

#What Are Self-Hosted Nodes?

Self-hosting a blockchain node means running the infrastructure yourself instead of relying on a third-party provider. This could be on servers in your own data center, in a cloud environment you manage, or on dedicated bare metal from providers like Cherry Servers. In this model, your team is responsible for deploying, configuring, and maintaining the node software.

The effort is greater, but so are the rewards. Self-hosted nodes give teams full control over how the node operates. You can choose the client implementation, decide whether to keep full archival data, configure custom RPC methods, and integrate the node directly with your internal systems. Unlike hosted providers, there are no limits to the chains or configurations you can support.

The biggest draw, however, is cost efficiency and reliability at scale. Because you’re paying for fixed hardware rather than per-request pricing, costs remain predictable no matter how many calls your application makes. A properly configured server can handle millions of requests per month, often at a fraction of the cost of hosted services. And because the infrastructure is dedicated, performance is consistent because you’re not competing with other tenants on shared machines.

Self-hosting does require technical investment. Teams must monitor uptime, apply updates, and troubleshoot issues when they arise. But for enterprises running production systems, these responsibilities are a worthwhile tradeoff for the benefits of predictable pricing, consistent performance, and long-term independence.

In other words, while node providers offer the fastest path to launch, self-hosted nodes offer the most sustainable path to scale.

#The Cost Factor: Predictable vs. Unpredictable Pricing

For most Web3 projects, infrastructure cost is more than a budget line, it determines whether growth means expansion or surprise bills. This is where the distinction between node providers and self-hosting becomes obvious: shared services scale costs, self-hosting keeps them stable.

Providers bill by usage per RPC, per compute unit, or via credits. With light traffic, it seems fair; with scale, the model exposes you to bill shock.

Self-hosting flips that: you pay a fixed monthly cost for your server and bandwidth baseline. If your traffic stays below certain limits, your cost doesn’t move. Only when you exceed egress or hardware thresholds do you pay extra, but these are generally small and predictable.

Let's bring an example, a rough estimation based on the average costs of each option.

#Node Providers vs Self Hosted Nodes Pricing Models

Based on the average cost of the node providers' pricing plans, let's calculate the rough costs.

[Node Providers — Business Plan]

• $999/month

• 2 billion API credits included

• 500 requests/second cap

• Overage: $0.50 per extra million credits

[Node Providers — Pay As You Go]

• Includes 11 million CUs in the Pay-As-You-Go plan with no fixed monthly fee.

• “As low as $0.40 per million CPUs” for high volumes.

• Throughput up to 300 requests/second in that tier.

• Beyond free or base CU quota, usage is billed: $0.45 per million CUs until 300M, then discounted to $0.40 per million.

[Dedicated Bare Metal Server]

• Cost: ~$759.33/month (for 24 cores, 384 GB, 10Gbps uplink)

• 100 TB free egress traffic per month, with “unmetered ingress”

• Extra egress at €0.50 / TB

#Traffic capacity & cost vs spike scenario

For clarity, assume an average RPC response size ~1 KB:

• 100 TB = 100,000,000,000 KB, so ~100 billion RPC calls before free egress is exhausted.

• If your server can sustain 5,000 requests per second continuously over 30 days:

  That’s ~12.96 billion requests in a month.

So under that load, you’re well under the 100 TB egress cap (you’d need ~100 billion calls to hit it under 1 KB assumption).

Now suppose your traffic doubles, or you issue more heavy RPCs:

• Business plan: 500 RPS for 30 days = ~1.296 billion calls. You are well under 2 billion API credits in simple cases. But if many calls cost 2–3 credits, you might deplete your credits early and start paying overage. Overshooting by, say, 5–8 billion extra credits at $0.50/million = $2,500–$4,000 extra.

• Pay as you go: The Pay As You Go tier allows 11 million CUs. If your average RPC costs, say, 20 CUs, that’s around 550,000 calls before you exhaust your CU buffer. Going beyond, each additional CU is charged (~$0.45/M CU up to 300M, then ~$0.40). Heavy calls or high volume can push cost high quickly.

• Self-hosting on bare metal: Under that load, your cost remains ~$759/month. Even if traffic surges or egress crosses 100 TB, extra cost is small (e.g. €0.50 per TB) — very unlikely to jump your bill by orders of magnitude.

If the traffic stays moderate, using providers is good. But in a growing or unpredictable environment, if your node traffic or request volume climbs and you don’t want your cost to climb the same, self-hosting becomes the safer bet.

#Performance & Scale

Performance is where the gap between node providers and self-hosted infrastructure becomes most visible. On paper, both offer the same end result, an RPC endpoint that connects your application to the blockchain. But under heavy load, the difference in how they operate matters.

Node providers run in shared environments. Your requests travel through infrastructure that is also serving other customers. For small applications, this usually isn’t noticeable. But as traffic increases, latency becomes less predictable, and rate limits begin to throttle throughput. Most providers impose ceilings to prevent any single customer from overwhelming their system, which means scaling isn’t simply a matter of paying more, it often requires architectural workarounds.

Self-hosted nodes on dedicated bare metal avoid these constraints. Because the hardware is single-tenant, there are no noisy neighbors competing for resources. CPU cycles, memory, and storage are fully allocated to your workload, delivering consistent latency and throughput even under heavy traffic. The difference becomes especially clear when applications need to process large bursts of requests or run workloads like indexing, analytics, or validator operations that demand continuous high performance.

Real-world results bear this out. Teams running Solana RPC nodes on bare metal often report handling two to four times more requests than hosted alternatives, at lower overall cost. For Web3 platforms where user experience depends on fast, reliable blockchain calls, that level of stability can make or break adoption.

In short, node providers may offer convenience, but self-hosted nodes deliver the raw performance and scalability that serious Web3 applications need.

#Ease of Setup: Speed vs. Sustainability

The biggest advantage node providers bring to the table is speed. A developer can sign up, generate an endpoint, and start querying a blockchain in minutes. There’s no need to worry about syncing a client, maintaining storage, or upgrading when a network releases a hard fork. For hackathons, proofs of concept, or projects racing toward launch, this frictionless setup is hard to beat.

Self-hosting sits at the other end of the spectrum. Standing up a node on dedicated hardware takes time and expertise. You need to choose the right server specifications, install the client software, sync it with the network, and configure monitoring to keep it stable. There’s no shortcut around these steps—they require either in-house DevOps skill or external consultation.

But while providers win on time-to-market, they fall short on sustainability. The very convenience that makes them attractive early on becomes a limitation later: pricing tied to usage, rate limits, and dependency on someone else’s roadmap. Self-hosting flips the tradeoff. The setup may a bit longer, but once deployed, it gives you predictable costs, consistent performance, and freedom from vendor constraints.

For teams building long-term infrastructure, the initial setup effort is often a small price compared to the stability it buys down the road.

#Vendor Lock-In

One of the least visible risks of relying on node providers is vendor lock-in. At first, it feels like a non-issue, you get reliable access to major blockchains without worrying about infrastructure. But over time, dependence on a single provider can create friction that’s difficult to escape.

Every provider comes with its own APIs, request limits, and feature sets. The deeper your systems are integrated with those specifics, the harder it becomes to migrate away. If pricing changes, you may have no choice but to absorb the extra cost. If support for a particular chain is discontinued, you could find your project suddenly scrambling to re-architect its infrastructure.

Self-hosting avoids this dependency. By running your own nodes, you control the software client, the configurations, and the upgrade path. If you need to change how data is indexed, or if you want to support a less common chain, you can make those adjustments without waiting on a vendor’s roadmap. The infrastructure is yours, and so is the freedom to adapt it.

For enterprises, the question isn’t just about convenience today but about resilience tomorrow. Vendor lock-in can quietly accumulate until it becomes a strategic liability, whereas self-hosting ensures that your growth isn’t constrained by another company’s business model.

#The Case for Infrastructure Sovereignty

As blockchain adoption matures, enterprises are demanding more than just access, they want sovereignty over their infrastructure. This isn’t just a technical preference; it’s increasingly a requirement driven by compliance, security, and long-term strategy.

When you run your own nodes, you’re not only gaining control over performance and cost, you’re also owning the full flow of data. You decide where it’s stored, how it’s secured, and who has access. For industries like finance, supply chain, or government technology, this level of oversight is non-negotiable. Hosted providers may offer general compliance certifications, but they rarely go deep enough for organizations with strict internal or regulatory requirements.

Sovereignty also ensures adaptability. With self-hosted nodes, you can choose when to upgrade clients, test against forks, or introduce custom configurations. You can run archival nodes for extended data retention, or build private RPC layers for sensitive workloads. These options aren’t just about control, they create a competitive edge by letting you shape infrastructure around your business, rather than bending your business to fit a vendor’s product.

Of course, sovereignty requires responsibility. Operating nodes means maintaining uptime, handling updates, and monitoring health. But for enterprises looking beyond short-term convenience, the payoff is freedom: fewer surprises, tighter compliance, and infrastructure that grows on your terms.

#Conclusion

The choice between node providers and self-hosted nodes is more than a technical detail, it’s a question of how your business plans to grow. Node providers deliver speed and simplicity, making them an attractive option for proofs of concept, early-stage products, or workloads with light and unpredictable traffic. But their strengths are also their limitations. Shared environments, usage-based pricing, and dependence on a vendor’s roadmap introduce costs and risks that become harder to justify as projects scale.

Self-hosted nodes, especially on dedicated bare metal servers, demand more effort up front and more technical knowledge, but provide the long-term stability that enterprises depend on. Costs are predictable, performance is consistent under high traffic, and the infrastructure remains fully under your control. For Web3 projects operating in regulated industries or planning for sustained growth, these advantages often outweigh the convenience of managed services.

In the end, the choice really depends on your projects' needs and requirements.