TRON RPC endpoints: free public URLs by latency
HTTP round-trip latency for `eth_getBlockByNumber("latest", false)` against every free, no-key public TRON JSON-RPC-compatible endpoint, audited every 60 seconds from 3 regions.
TL;DR. As of , TronGrid has the lowest median latency of the 2 free public TRON RPC endpoints measured, 36 ms (p50, 24h, 3 regions). Source: OpenChainBench, https://openchainbench.com/benchmarks/tron-rpc. 2 public endpoints, no key: api.trongrid.io, tron.publicnode.com. Full URLs with their 24h median are listed below.
Companion page
Comparing free RPC endpoints across every chain we measure? Open the cross-chain RPC matrix →
TRON exposes two RPC surfaces: the native Tron HTTP API (`wallet/getnowblock`, `wallet/triggersmartcontract`) and an EVM-compatible JSON-RPC endpoint (`/jsonrpc`) that speaks standard Ethereum method names (`eth_blockNumber`, `eth_getBlockByNumber`, `eth_getBalance`). This bench measures the JSON-RPC surface because that is the path every TRON-compatible EVM wallet, TronWeb bridge and cross-chain bot integrates against. Provider cohort: TronGrid (Tron Foundation official) and PublicNode / Allnodes. dRPC was removed after the TRON JSON-RPC method became unavailable. Ankr's JSON-RPC path is keyless in branding but rejected our probes with `API key is not allowed to access blockchain`; Chainstack, NOWNodes, GetBlock, Tatum and BlockPI require API keys on the TRON JSON-RPC path; OnFinality and Blast API have no public TRON JSON-RPC gateway at this time. The native TRON REST API surface (used by TronWeb + TronBox) is out of scope for the RPC cluster and would need a chain-specific probe added.
Methodology
TRON: 2 free public RPC endpoints answering `eth_getBlockByNumber` every 60 seconds from us-east, eu-west and Singapore, ranked by 24h median. TronGrid leads at 36 ms. We measure the round-trip latency of a single, identical JSON-RPC call (`eth_getBlockByNumber("latest", false)`) against every no-key public TRON JSON-RPC endpoint that sustains continuous probing, 2 providers, every 60 seconds, from us-east, eu-west and Singapore. The harness classifies every response (ok / http_err / jsonrpc_err / stale / timeout) with the EVM staleness gap tuned for TRON's ~3 s block time (25 blocks ≈ 75 seconds). The cross-chain view lives on the parent `rpc-capabilities` benchmark; this page is the TRON-scoped answer with per-region breakdowns as a first-class dimension.
Results: 2 free public TRON RPC endpoints ranked by p50 latency (24h, 3 regions)
| № | Providers | p50 | p90 | p99 | Success |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | TronGrid | 36 ms | 104 ms | 197 ms | 100.00% (n=4343) |
| 2 | PublicNode | 106 ms | 196 ms | 670 ms | 99.93% (n=4326) |
Public TRON RPC endpoints measured
The 2 no-key endpoints answering our probes today, with their current 24h median. Paste one into a wallet or a client as is: no signup, no key. Private providers (API key) are never listed with a URL.
TronGridhttps://api.trongrid.io/jsonrpc36 ms100.0%
PublicNodehttps://tron.publicnode.com/jsonrpc106 ms99.9%
Median round-trip and success rate over the last 24 hours across the probe regions; the ranked table above carries p90, p99 and the per-region split.
Frequently asked
Which TRON RPCs work without an API key?
2 JSON-RPC endpoints are probed on this chain: TronGrid (`api.trongrid.io/jsonrpc`) and PublicNode / Allnodes (`tron.publicnode.com/jsonrpc`). dRPC was removed after the TRON JSON-RPC method became unavailable. Ankr's TRON JSON-RPC path rejects keyless probes with `API key is not allowed to access blockchain`; Chainstack, NOWNodes, GetBlock, Tatum and BlockPI require an API key on the TRON JSON-RPC path even though branded as public; OnFinality, Blast API and AllThatNode have no public TRON JSON-RPC gateway.
Why only 2 providers when other RPC benches have 5+?
TRON's JSON-RPC compat layer is thinner than the EVM one, and most infra vendors gate it behind an API key even when their native TRON REST endpoints are keyless. dRPC was removed after the TRON JSON-RPC method became unavailable. The 2 providers on this page are all keyless endpoints that responded correctly to a plain POST; when other vendors open a keyless JSON-RPC path we will add them.
Does this bench cover the native TRON REST API (`wallet/getnowblock`)?
No. This bench scopes only the EVM-compatible JSON-RPC surface (`/jsonrpc` endpoints), because that is the path cross-chain wallets, TronWeb bridges, and arbitrage bots integrate against. The native TRON REST API surface (used by TronWeb + TronBox directly) has different method semantics (address encoding, resource model, `wallet/*` vs `walletsolidity/*` paths) and would need a chain-specific probe added. That will land as a separate `tron-rest` bench when the demand from integrators using TronWeb directly is clear.
How is TRON RPC latency measured here, technically?
One identical JSON-RPC POST (`eth_getBlockByNumber("latest", false)`) every 60 seconds against each provider from each of 3 regions, using the same plain HTTP client the rest of the EVM cluster uses. Wall-clock round-trip is recorded at millisecond precision; p50/p90/p99 are computed via Prometheus `quantile_over_time` over 24 hours. Responses are classified (`ok` / `http_err` / `jsonrpc_err` / `stale` / `timeout`) so an endpoint stuck on an old head or returning errors behind HTTP 200 is never ranked as fastest.
Source code github.com/ChainBench/OpenChainBench/tree/main/harnesses/rpc-capabilities