Base vs Optimism

Split decision: Base leads on Fastest L2 block time, live across Robinhood, Arbitrum, Base and 6 more (190 ms vs 1.96 s) and Fastest free public RPC for Ethereum, BNB, Polygon and 23 more chains (103 ms vs 151 ms); Optimism leads on Cheapest blockchain transaction fee, live across L1 and L2 chains ($0.0000018 vs $0.000287) and Fastest Wormhole VAA finalization by source chain, live latency (18.8 min vs 19.0 min). Data as of 2026-11-08 UTC.

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

Coinbase-operated optimistic rollup on the OP Stack. 2-second sequencer block time, shared bridge with Optimism via the OP Superchain, fastest-growing L2 by TVL since 2024.

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

Base

Leads

103 ms

p99
140 ms
rank
#4
samples
4,322

Optimism

Trails

151 ms

p99
191 ms
rank
#8
samples
4,322
RPC latency
Basen/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

Base

Trails

41

rank
#7
samples
82provisional

Optimism

No data in window

Reliability incidents
Basen/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
Base$7.76B54.7%--$6.42B$2.74B$5.02B
Optimism$1.21B81.7%--$270.65M$905.13M$304.85M
View
Basen/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
Base-$5.01B--
Optimism-$398.55M--
View
Basen/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

Base vs Optimism: which one is better?

Base and Optimism are compared on 10 shared OpenChainBench benchmarks. Base 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, Base or Optimism?

On the Fastest L2 block time, live across Robinhood, Arbitrum, Base and 6 more benchmark, Base leads at 190 ms versus Optimism at 1.96 s. Live measurement is updated continuously by the OpenChainBench harness.

Which is cheaper, Base or Optimism?

On the Cheapest blockchain transaction fee, live across L1 and L2 chains benchmark, Optimism leads at $0.0000018 versus Base at $0.000287. Live measurement is updated continuously by the OpenChainBench harness.

How is the Base 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.