Arbitrum vs Optimism

Arbitrum leads on 5 of 8 shared benchmarks, Optimism on 3. Arbitrum wins on Fastest L2 block time, live across Robinhood, Arbitrum, Base and 6 more (342 ms vs 1.92 s), Fastest free public RPC for Ethereum, BNB, Polygon and 23 more chains (132 ms vs 162 ms), Fastest LayerZero source chain by end-to-end message delivery (23.55 s vs 1.4 min), Fastest Axelar GMP source chain by end-to-end delivery (23.7 min vs 26.3 min). Optimism wins on Cheapest blockchain transaction fee, live across L1 and L2 chains ($0.0000757 vs $0.00100), Fastest Wormhole VAA finalization by source chain, live latency (17.5 min vs 17.8 min), Fastest Chainlink CCIP source chain by end-to-end delivery latency (17.5 min vs 17.6 min). Data as of 2026-10-25 UTC.

Read methodology Last measured Window: rolling 24h10 shared benchmarks, 8 measured on both sides
Arbitrum logo
Arbitrum

Optimistic rollup built on Nitro stack with a fast-finality sequencer. Sub-second block times (~250 ms) via a 250 ms default block interval, far below the 2 s OP Stack convention. 7-day fraud-proof window for L1 finality.

Optimism logo
Optimism

Optimistic rollup and the canonical OP Stack reference implementation. 2-second sequencer block time, 7-day fraud-proof window, anchored to Ethereum L1 via batch submissions to the Optimism Portal.

Side by side measurements

Fastest free public RPC for Ethereum, BNB, Polygon and 23 more chains (plus Solana and Polkadot)

RPCs

Headline: All chains

Arbitrum

Leads

132 ms

p99
267 ms
rank
#6
samples
4,330

Optimism

Trails

162 ms

p99
226 ms
rank
#8
samples
4,327
RPC latency
Arbitrumn/aOptimismn/a

Latency is conditional on success: the harness times only calls returning a valid fresh block, so a mostly-failing endpoint can post a fast p50. Rows below 50 percent success are degraded; unresponsive probes pin below the table. The All chains aggregate favours single-chain foundation endpoints (Base, Binance, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche officials) since they rank on one chain only; use a chain tab for honest comparison. Dead endpoints (cloudflare-eth POST returns -32603) are excluded.

Most reliable free public RPC, correctness incidents across 7 EVM chains

RPCs

Headline: All chains

Arbitrum

No data in window

Optimism

No data in window

Reliability incidents
Arbitrumn/aOptimismn/a

A zero row means no incident was caught in the window, not a proof of correctness. Most providers post zero most days; this bench exists for the days they do not, and for the errors: a blocked eth_getLogs or a balance read gated behind a paid key at 40 blocks of depth counts as an incident because it is one from the caller's seat.

Rolling 24h · Reliability incidentsRaw JSON

Bridged TVL by chain: how much of a chain's capital came from somewhere else

Blockchains
ProviderBridged TVLBridged share7d change7d vs peersNativeCanonicalExternal
Arbitrum$7.47B74.4%-0.40%$2.57B$3.29B$4.18B
Optimism$1.44B82.3%--$310.01M$1.13B$306.91M
View
Arbitrumn/aOptimismn/a

Bridged TVL is value secured by the chain's bridge, not value locked in its DeFi protocols; a chain can rank high on one and low on the other. The split is L2Beat's: canonical is escrowed on the host chain by the chain's own contracts, external came through a third-party bridge, native was minted here. Rows are the chains L2Beat tracks in its scaling summary; a settled L1 has no row by construction, not by omission. Size is not quality: a large balance says capital came, not that it stayed.

Stablecoin flow by chain: where dollars actually moved over 30 days

Blockchains
Provider30d changeStablecoin floatNet 7d7d change
Arbitrum-$3.86B--
Optimism-$435.00M--
View
Arbitrumn/aOptimismn/a

Stablecoin float is where dollars are parked, not what they do. A chain can take in a billion that sits idle, and lose float to a single issuer redeeming. The figure is DefiLlama's chain-wide pegged-USD aggregate, every issuer combined; it does not separate a bridge inflow from a native mint, and a dollar bridged to an L2 counts on both chains, so rows are not additive. Read the net dollars with the percentage beside them: the same $400M is a rounding error on Ethereum and a doubling elsewhere.

Latest value · Net stablecoin flow (30d)Raw JSON

Frequently asked questions

Arbitrum vs Optimism: which one is better?

Arbitrum and Optimism are compared on 10 shared OpenChainBench benchmarks. Arbitrum leads on Fastest L2 block time, live across Robinhood, Arbitrum, Base and 6 more. Optimism leads on Cheapest blockchain transaction fee, live across L1 and L2 chains. See the live table on this page for every metric.

Which is faster, Arbitrum or Optimism?

On the Fastest L2 block time, live across Robinhood, Arbitrum, Base and 6 more benchmark, Arbitrum leads at 342 ms versus Optimism at 1.92 s. Live measurement is updated continuously by the OpenChainBench harness.

Which is cheaper, Arbitrum or Optimism?

On the Cheapest blockchain transaction fee, live across L1 and L2 chains benchmark, Optimism leads at $0.0000757 versus Arbitrum at $0.00100. Live measurement is updated continuously by the OpenChainBench harness.

How is the Arbitrum vs Optimism comparison measured?

Every benchmark on this page uses the same open methodology, published at https://openchainbench.com/methodology. Data is CC-BY-4.0. Measurement harnesses are MIT-licensed.

Related comparisons

How this pair was selected

Auto-generated pairs require: both providers in the same benchmark for seven consecutive days, at least 1000 samples per provider, observable third-party search demand, and a public /products/[slug] page on OCB. Editorially curated pairs (like this one) may publish early when search demand is high and data is accruing; panels with fewer than 100 samples are shown as provisional. The full pair ledger is versioned in the public repo.

Live data refreshes via ISR within 60 seconds of a new run. Sources are the same Prometheus queries surfaced on the parent benchmark pages.