Zcash RPC endpoints: free public URLs by latency
HTTP round-trip latency for getblockcount against every available public Zcash endpoint, audited every 60 seconds from 3 regions.
TL;DR. As of , Tatum has the lowest median latency of the 3 free public Zcash RPC endpoints measured, 100 ms (p50, 24h, 3 regions). Source: OpenChainBench, https://openchainbench.com/benchmarks/zcash-rpc. 3 public endpoints, no key: zcash-mainnet.gateway.tatum.io, api.blockchair.com, zcash-mainnet-zebrad.gateway.tatum.io. 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 →
Zcash is a proof-of-work privacy blockchain launched in October 2016; it uses the Equihash algorithm and produces one block every 75 seconds. Zcash exposes a Bitcoin-compatible JSON-RPC interface; the canonical height method is getblockcount. Public endpoints are available without an API key from Tatum (3 gateways: one backed by the legacy zcashd node and one backed by the new Zebra node) and Blockchair (REST GET). zcashd reached end of life in July 2026; Zebra is now the reference Zcash full-node implementation maintained by the Zcash Foundation. Every provider was live-verified with consecutive block-height probes at launch.
Methodology
Zcash: 3 free public RPC endpoints answering `getblockcount` every 60 seconds from us-east, eu-west and Singapore, ranked by 24h median. Tatum leads at 100 ms. We measure the round-trip latency of a block-height query against every available public Zcash endpoint that sustains continuous probing: 3 providers live today, every 60 seconds, from us-east, eu-west and Singapore. Tatum is probed via JSON-RPC POST (getblockcount) on 3 gateways: a zcashd backend and a Zebra backend behind the same provider. Blockchair is probed via REST GET of its zcash stats endpoint. The harness classifies every response (ok; http_err; jsonrpc_err; stale; timeout) with a Zcash-scaled staleness gap (4 blocks, around 5 min at 75 s/block). The cross-chain view lives on the parent rpc-capabilities benchmark; this page is the Zcash-scoped answer with per-region breakdowns as a first-class dimension.
Results: 3 free public Zcash RPC endpoints ranked by p50 latency (24h, 3 regions)
| № | Providers | p50 | p90 | p99 | Success |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tatum | 100 ms | 110 ms | 163 ms | 75.32% |
| 2 | Blockchair | 149 ms | 164 ms | 579 ms | 100.00% |
| 3 | Tatum (Zebra) | 168 ms | 205 ms | 244 ms | 74.26% |
Public Zcash RPC endpoints measured
The 3 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.
Tatumhttps://zcash-mainnet.gateway.tatum.io100 ms75.3%
Blockchairhttps://api.blockchair.com/zcash/stats149 ms100.0%- Tatum (Zebra)
https://zcash-mainnet-zebrad.gateway.tatum.io168 ms74.3%
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 Zcash RPC endpoints work without an API key?
3 endpoints are probed on this chain: Tatum zcashd (zcash-mainnet.gateway.tatum.io; JSON-RPC), Tatum Zebra (zcash-mainnet-zebrad.gateway.tatum.io; JSON-RPC) and Blockchair (api.blockchair.com/zcash/stats; REST GET). Every listed endpoint was live-verified with a block-height probe returning a parsable result before inclusion.
What is the difference between Tatum zcashd and Tatum Zebra?
Both are Tatum gateways for Zcash mainnet. zcashd is the original C++ Zcash node that reached end of life in July 2026, while Zebra is the new Rust full-node implementation maintained by the Zcash Foundation. Tatum runs both backends and exposes them on separate gateway URLs. Comparing their latency shows whether the node implementation itself affects response time.
Why does Blockchair use a different API method than the Tatum providers?
Blockchair exposes a proprietary REST API rather than a Bitcoin-compatible JSON-RPC interface. Instead of getblockcount, we send a GET request to its zcash stats endpoint, which returns a JSON object with a data.best_block_height field. The measurement logic is identical: client-side round-trip in milliseconds, classified as ok when a parsable block height is returned.
Source code github.com/ChainBench/OpenChainBench/tree/main/harnesses/rpc-capabilities