Lava Network vs PublicNode

Lava Network leads on 2 of 7 shared benchmarks, PublicNode on 5. Lava Network wins on Most reliable free public RPC, correctness incidents across 7 EVM chains (4 vs 83), Fastest free Cosmos Hub RPC, live no-key Cosmos SDK endpoint latency (76 ms vs 258 ms). PublicNode wins on Fastest free public RPC for Ethereum, BNB, Polygon and 23 more chains (215 ms vs 309 ms), Fastest free Ethereum RPC, live no-key endpoint latency (133 ms vs 395 ms), Fastest free Arbitrum RPC, live no-key endpoint latency (89 ms vs 271 ms), Fastest free Sonic RPC, live no-key endpoint latency (91 ms vs 503 ms).

Read methodology Last measured Wed, 19 Aug 2026 05:15:44 UTCWindow: rolling 24h7 shared benchmarks

Lava Network

Lava Network is a decentralized RPC mesh with permissionless validators. Public no-key endpoints work for Ethereum (`eth1.lava.build`) and Arbitrum (`arb1.lava.build`); other chains require an account-issued key.

PublicNode

Public no-key RPC service operated by Allnodes covering 70+ chains. JSON-RPC and WebSocket endpoints with archive support on most networks.

Side by side measurements

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

RPCs

Lava Network

Trails

309 ms

p99: 2.82 s
rank: #10
samples: 25,324

PublicNode

Leads

215 ms

p99: 1.20 s
rank: #3
samples: 270,763

Per chain · per region

Chain	Provider	US-East	EU-West	Singapore	Aggregate
Ethereum	Lava Network	394 ms	393 ms	397 ms	395 ms
Ethereum	PublicNode	108 ms	143 ms	147 ms	133 ms
Arbitrum	Lava Network	265 ms	259 ms	290 ms	271 ms
Arbitrum	PublicNode	94 ms	87 ms	88 ms	90 ms

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.

Fastest free Ethereum RPC, live no-key endpoint latency

RPCs

Lava Network

Trails

395 ms

p99: 2.66 s
rank: #6
samples: 4,288

PublicNode

Leads

133 ms

p99: 6.37 s
rank: #2
samples: 4,300

Per region

Region	Lava Network	PublicNode
US-East	393 ms	108 ms
EU-West	394 ms	143 ms
Singapore	397 ms	147 ms

Fastest free Arbitrum RPC, live no-key endpoint latency

RPCs

Lava Network

Trails

271 ms

p99: 4.67 s
rank: #5
samples: 4,263

PublicNode

Leads

89 ms

p99: 692 ms
rank: #1
samples: 4,295

Per region

Region	Lava Network	PublicNode
US-East	265 ms	94 ms
EU-West	259 ms	87 ms
Singapore	289 ms	88 ms

Fastest free Sonic RPC, live no-key endpoint latency

RPCs

Lava Network

Trails

503 ms

p99: 4.29 s
rank: #5
samples: 4,285

PublicNode

Leads

91 ms

p99: 434 ms
rank: #1
samples: 4,275

Per region

Region	Lava Network	PublicNode
US-East	490 ms	93 ms
EU-West	535 ms	89 ms
Singapore	485 ms	92 ms

Fastest free Solana RPC, live no-key endpoint latency

RPCs

Lava Network

Trails

332 ms

p99: 2.60 s
rank: #4
samples: 4,258

PublicNode

Leads

95 ms

p99: 7.00 s
rank: #2
samples: 4,258

Per region

Region	Lava Network	PublicNode
US-East	323 ms	101 ms
EU-West	323 ms	91 ms
Singapore	351 ms	93 ms

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

RPCs

Lava Network

Leads

p99: 83
rank: #3
samples: 190

PublicNode

Trails

p99: 54.0K
rank: #4
samples: 574

Per chain

Chain	Lava Network	PublicNode
Ethereum	1	5
Arbitrum	3	4

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.

Fastest free Cosmos Hub RPC, live no-key Cosmos SDK endpoint latency

RPCs

Lava Network

Leads

76 ms

p99: 1.38 s
rank: #1
samples: 4,326

PublicNode

Trails

258 ms

p99: 663 ms
rank: #4
samples: 4,333

Per region

Region	Lava Network	PublicNode
US-East	76 ms	266 ms
EU-West	77 ms	248 ms
Singapore	76 ms	259 ms

Frequently asked questions

Lava Network vs PublicNode: which one is better?

Lava Network and PublicNode are compared on 7 shared OpenChainBench benchmarks. Lava Network leads on Most reliable free public RPC, correctness incidents across 7 EVM chains. PublicNode leads on Fastest free public RPC for Ethereum, BNB, Polygon and 23 more chains. See the live table on this page for every metric.

Which is faster, Lava Network or PublicNode?

On the Most reliable free public RPC, correctness incidents across 7 EVM chains benchmark, Lava Network leads at 4 versus PublicNode at 83. Live measurement is updated continuously by the OpenChainBench harness.

Which is faster, Lava Network or PublicNode?

On the Fastest free public RPC for Ethereum, BNB, Polygon and 23 more chains benchmark, PublicNode leads at 215 ms versus Lava Network at 309 ms. Live measurement is updated continuously by the OpenChainBench harness.

How is the Lava Network vs PublicNode 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.

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.