Fastest free Kusama RPC, live no-key endpoint latency
HTTP round-trip latency for chain_getHeader against every free, no-key public Kusama relay-chain endpoint, audited every 60 seconds from 3 regions.
TL;DR. As of , OnFinality leads rpc latency at 52 ms (p50, 24h) on Fastest free Kusama RPC, live no-key endpoint latency. Source: OpenChainBench, https://openchainbench.com/benchmarks/kusama-rpc.
Companion page
Comparing free RPC endpoints across every chain we measure? Open the cross-chain RPC matrix →
Kusama is Polkadot's canary network, a live production relay chain (KSM token) where new features ship before Polkadot mainnet. Substrate-based, ~6 s block time, same Substrate JSON-RPC wire protocol as Polkadot. Six keyless endpoints are probed continuously: PublicNode, OnFinality, dRPC, IBP Network, Dwellir, and 1RPC.
Methodology
Per-chain member of the RPC latency cluster, extended to Kusama. We measure the round-trip latency of a single, identical JSON-RPC call (`chain_getHeader`) against every no-key public Kusama relay-chain endpoint that sustains continuous probing, 6 providers at launch, every 60 seconds, from us-east, eu-west and Singapore. The harness classifies every response (ok / http_err / jsonrpc_err / stale / timeout) with a relay-chain-scaled staleness gap (40 blocks). The cross-chain view lives on the parent `rpc-capabilities` benchmark; this page is the Kusama-scoped answer with per-region breakdowns as a first-class dimension.
Frequently asked
What is the fastest free Kusama RPC right now?
OnFinality currently leads at 52 ms (`chain_getHeader` p50 over the last 24h), measured against 6 no-key providers probed every 60 seconds from us-east, eu-west and Singapore. The leaderboard re-sorts continuously against fresh Prometheus samples.
Which Kusama RPCs work without an API key?
6 endpoints sustain continuous keyless probing at launch: PublicNode, OnFinality, dRPC, IBP Network (Kusama governance-funded infra), Dwellir, and 1RPC. Every listed endpoint was live-verified before inclusion.
Does the fastest Kusama RPC change by region?
Often. Substrate-ecosystem infra concentrates in Europe; endpoints that win from Amsterdam can lose from Singapore. The region tabs re-scope every number to a single origin.
How is Kusama RPC latency measured here?
One identical Substrate JSON-RPC POST (`chain_getHeader`) every 60 seconds from each of 3 regions. Responses are classified so stale or error endpoints are never ranked as fastest.
Source code github.com/ChainBench/OpenChainBench/tree/main/harnesses/rpc-capabilities