NOWNodes, Alchemy, and QuickNode all solve the same starting problem — connecting an application to a blockchain without running a node yourself — but they price and scope that access in three different ways. NOWNodes covers 120+ networks, including Bitcoin, Litecoin, and other non-EVM chains, under one flat monthly request quota. Alchemy focuses on 100+ chains with a deeper NFT and token API layer billed by compute unit, and QuickNode covers roughly 79 chains and 135+ networks through a credit system built around Solana tooling and real-time data pipelines.
For most teams building across several chains, or anyone who wants to know their bill before the month starts, NOWNodes’ combination of broader coverage and flat pricing ends up the simplest starting point. Alchemy and QuickNode earn their higher, variable bills only when a project genuinely needs their specific add-on layer — NFT indexing on one side, Solana infrastructure and streaming pipelines on the other.
What Are NOWNodes, Alchemy, and QuickNode, Exactly?
NOWNodes is a blockchain infrastructure provider that gives developers API-based access to shared and dedicated nodes across 120+ networks, from Bitcoin and Ethereum to Solana, Polygon, and privacy coins like Monero. You get an endpoint and an API key, and NOWNodes keeps the node behind it synced and running.
Alchemy is a Web3 development platform, founded in 2017, that operates RPC nodes on top of more than 100 chains and adds its own layer of enhanced APIs for NFT and token data, event webhooks, and a usage dashboard. QuickNode is a managed RPC provider founded in 2017 by Alex Nabutovsky, Dmitry Shklovsky, Auston Bunsen, and Manuel Kreutz, and launched publicly in 2020; it wraps its RPC layer in endpoint analytics and a marketplace of add-ons for things like real-time data streaming and gas estimation.
RPC (remote procedure call) is the mechanism underneath all three services: a way of asking a remote server to run a function — say, “return this address’s balance” — and get the result back over the network. Every blockchain client, from Geth to Solana’s Agave, exposes its data this way, and that shared JSON-RPC standard is exactly why an application can move between providers without rewriting its core logic.
Why Do You Need a Provider Like These?
Running your own node is a genuine operational job, not a background task. A synced Ethereum full node currently needs roughly 650–700 GB of disk space and keeps growing, and it has to be patched and resynced through every protocol upgrade the network ships.
A provider takes that maintenance off your plate. You get an authenticated endpoint, the provider keeps the client software current and the hardware scaled, and your team spends its time on application logic instead of server operations. Mohammad Zahwy, Chief Business Development Officer at NOWNodes, put the underlying goal plainly in an interview with crypto.news: the aim is to “make blockchain infrastructure simple, fast, and reliable so builders can focus on building, rather than on node maintenance, syncing, and DevOps overhead.”
That trade-off holds whether you pick NOWNodes’ flat-rate shared nodes, Alchemy’s compute-unit billing, or QuickNode’s credit system. Only the pricing mechanics and the bundled tooling differ.
Who Actually Uses NOWNodes, Alchemy, and QuickNode?
NOWNodes tends to attract teams whose product spans several blockchains at once — wallets, exchanges, and payment platforms that need Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a dozen other chains under a single account rather than a separate vendor per network. Trading tools and monitoring systems that lean on WebSocket or gRPC streaming fit the same profile.
Alchemy’s enhanced NFT and token APIs point at a narrower kind of team: one building a consumer-facing product where blockchain data becomes a polished screen, not just a backend value. QuickNode’s tooling — Streams, Functions, endpoint analytics — points at request-heavy, often trading-adjacent products: MEV-aware bots, NFT marketplaces during mint events, and analytics platforms piping blockchain data into a database instead of polling for it.
| Use case | NOWNodes | Alchemy | QuickNode |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multi-chain wallet or exchange (BTC + ETH + others) | Best fit — one account, non-EVM coverage included | Requires checking chain coverage first | Requires checking chain coverage first |
| NFT marketplace needing metadata indexing | Possible, but you index it yourself | Best fit — built-in NFT API | Possible via marketplace add-ons |
| Real-time indexing pipeline into a database | Possible, but you build the pipeline yourself | Limited to webhooks | Best fit — built-in Streams product |
| Trading bot needing predictable monthly cost | Best fit — flat request quota | Depends on method mix | Depends on method mix |
| Backend that only checks balances and broadcasts transactions | Best fit — lighter, cheaper | Works, but pays for unused tooling | Works, but pays for unused tooling |
| Solana-native app needing deep ecosystem tooling | Possible | Limited | Best fit — a QuickNode specialty |
A backend that just reads balances and sends transactions rarely touches most of what Alchemy’s or QuickNode’s add-on layers offer. That unused surface area is worth weighing against a plainer, flat-priced endpoint doing the same job.
Network Coverage Compared
NOWNodes advertises support for 120+ blockchain networks, including non-EVM chains such as Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, and Monero alongside Ethereum, Solana, and other EVM chains. Alchemy lists 100+ chains, skewing more heavily toward EVM-compatible networks and Solana. QuickNode currently states support for roughly 79 blockchains across 135+ networks, also concentrated in the EVM and Solana ecosystem.
That gap matters most for multi-asset products. An EVM-only dApp won’t notice much difference in raw chain count between the three. A wallet or exchange that also needs Bitcoin, Litecoin, or a privacy coin will find several of those missing from both Alchemy’s and QuickNode’s lineups — something NOWNodes’ network list covers under one account instead.
Pricing: Flat Quotas vs. Compute Units vs. Credits
This is where the three providers diverge the most, and it’s the detail most likely to decide which one fits your budget. NOWNodes’ shared plans bill on a flat request-quota model: pick a monthly tier, get a fixed number of requests, and every call counts the same against that number, light or heavy.
Alchemy bills by compute unit (CU), a weight assigned to each RPC method based on how much server-side work it takes to answer — a light call like eth_blockNumber costs far less than eth_getLogs, according to Alchemy’s compute unit reference. QuickNode bills by API credit, defined in its own documentation as “Method Responses x Multipliers,” where multipliers apply only to successful, 200-status responses and vary by method in much the same way.
| Plan tier | NOWNodes (flat quota) | Alchemy (compute units) | QuickNode (credits) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 100,000 requests/month, 1 API key | 30M CUs/month, 25 RPS | 10M credits/month, 15 RPS |
| Entry paid | ~€20/month, 1M requests, 3 API keys | $0.45 per 1M CUs (pay-as-you-go) | $49/month, 80M credits, 50 RPS |
| Mid tier | ~€200/month, 30M requests, 25 API keys | Scales with CU consumption | $499/month, 950M credits, 250 RPS |
| Top published tier | ~€500/month, 100M requests, 100 API keys | Custom, from 1,000 RPS | $999+/month, 2B credits, 500 RPS |
Pricing and quotas change often across all three providers — verify current numbers against NOWNodes’ pricing page, Alchemy’s pricing page, and QuickNode’s pricing page before budgeting. The practical difference is predictability. A flat quota means 1 million balance checks and 1 million log scans cost the same on NOWNodes, while a CU or credit bill on the other two shifts with whatever methods your app happens to call most that month. QuickNode’s overage runs $0.50 to $0.62 per million additional credits depending on tier, and usage past $200 on paid plans is billed immediately rather than waiting for the next cycle.
Feature Comparison: Where Each Provider Adds Its Own Layer
Feature-for-feature, all three cover the RPC and WebSocket basics on their major networks, and all three gate archive data and Debug/Trace methods to specific plans. Past that baseline, each one emphasizes something different:
- Enhanced NFT/token APIs — an Alchemy specialty; NOWNodes and QuickNode don’t index this layer for you the same way.
- Streams and real-time indexing pipelines — a QuickNode specialty, covering 60+ networks and pushing filtered event data to a webhook, S3, or PostgreSQL.
- Market data (prices, market cap, volume) — a NOWNodes product covering 9,000+ cryptocurrencies and 90+ fiat assets; neither Alchemy nor QuickNode offers an equivalent.
- gRPC streaming — NOWNodes offers multichain gRPC across 25+ blockchains with sub-200ms latency; QuickNode’s real-time layer runs through Streams instead, and Alchemy’s through webhooks.
- Webhooks — Alchemy’s and QuickNode’s are general-purpose event webhooks; NOWNodes currently limits its webhook product to Bitcoin and Dogecoin address-balance changes, so check the specific event type you need.
- Dedicated infrastructure — NOWNodes offers dedicated nodes from mid-tier plans with no predefined RPS limit; QuickNode reserves dedicated clusters for custom Enterprise agreements; Alchemy doesn’t publish an equivalent dedicated-node product.
How Do Performance and Compliance Claims Compare?
Is QuickNode faster than NOWNodes and Alchemy? By each company’s own marketing figures, QuickNode advertises roughly 83-millisecond average Ethereum response times and 99.99% uptime. NOWNodes states around 0.2-second response times and 99.95% API uptime, with a separate 99.99% figure specific to its dedicated-node product. Alchemy doesn’t publish a comparable headline latency number on its public pages.
All of these are self-reported figures, so test them against your own region and workload rather than treating any of them as a guarantee. On compliance, QuickNode states SOC 1, SOC 2, and ISO 27001 certification — a real advantage for regulated customers like exchanges that need documented security controls before signing a vendor contract. Neither NOWNodes nor Alchemy publishes an equivalent certification list on their current pages, so a team with a hard compliance requirement should confirm the specific standard it needs before committing to any of the three.
How Hard Is It to Switch Providers Later?
Because JSON-RPC is a standardized protocol, moving core RPC traffic between NOWNodes, Alchemy, and QuickNode is usually a configuration change, not a rewrite. Auston Bunsen, co-founder of QuickNode, described the dynamic plainly in an interview with Sacra: “Most of the libraries are open source and provider-agnostic, so switching cost is almost nonexistent… I can go from Alchemy to Infura to QuickNode relatively quickly, unless I’m using one of their sort of custom APIs.”
That caveat is the whole story. An app built purely against standard methods like eth_getBalance and eth_sendRawTransaction can point at a new endpoint with a URL and key change. An app that leans on Alchemy’s getNftsForOwner, QuickNode’s Streams pipeline, or a provider-specific webhook schema has real migration work ahead if it ever needs to leave, because those tools don’t exist the same way anywhere else.
That’s worth weighing before you’re six months into production. A team that expects to stay EVM- or Solana-focused and wants bundled tooling accepts that trade-off deliberately. A team that wants to keep its options open, or that already knows it needs Bitcoin, Litecoin, or another non-EVM chain, has less to untangle later by starting on a flatter, standards-first provider.
NOWNodes vs. Alchemy vs. QuickNode: Which One Should You Choose?
Is NOWNodes better than Alchemy and QuickNode for a multi-chain product? Generally, yes. One account covering 120+ networks, including non-EVM chains, under a flat request quota is a simpler and more forecastable setup than running Alchemy or QuickNode plus a second provider to fill the chain gaps.
Is Alchemy better than NOWNodes for a consumer NFT or wallet app? For that specific case, Alchemy’s built-in NFT and token APIs save real indexing work, provided the app stays within Alchemy’s supported chains and the team accepts compute-unit billing.
Is QuickNode better than NOWNodes for a Solana trading bot or indexing pipeline? For that case, QuickNode’s Streams product and Solana-specific tooling save real engineering time, provided the team can plan around a bill that scales with its method mix.
The honest framing is that these are three different bets. NOWNodes bets that broad chain coverage and flat, predictable pricing matter more than a bundled application layer — a bet that pays off for the largest share of teams: wallets, exchanges, and payment platforms juggling several chains on a budget that needs to be known in advance. Alchemy and QuickNode each bet that their specific tooling saves more engineering time than their narrower chain list and variable billing cost, which is the stronger case only for the specific product each one is built around.
Limitations Worth Knowing Before You Commit
Alchemy’s and QuickNode’s method-weighted billing rewards light, simple calls and penalizes heavier ones — an indexing job leaning on eth_getLogs or debug_traceTransaction can burn through a monthly allowance far faster than the headline CU or credit number suggests. Budgeting for either means modeling your actual method mix, not the cheapest example on a pricing page.
NOWNodes’ flat quota removes that guesswork but has its own ceiling: once a plan’s allowance is used up, the account either upgrades or pays overage rates, regardless of whether the extra requests were cheap or expensive to serve. Its webhook product is also narrower than a general-purpose event platform right now, currently limited to Bitcoin and Dogecoin address-balance changes.
None of the three is a universal answer. A provider that fits a consumer NFT marketplace or a Solana trading desk poorly may be exactly right for a Bitcoin-and-Ethereum payment backend, and the reverse holds just as often — which is why matching the provider to your actual chain list and traffic pattern matters more than any single pricing page.
Conclusion
NOWNodes, Alchemy, and QuickNode all give applications API access to blockchain nodes, but they’re built for different bets. NOWNodes prioritizes broad multi-chain coverage — including Bitcoin, Litecoin, and other non-EVM networks — under flat, predictable pricing that a finance team can budget against from day one. Alchemy bundles NFT and token tooling for consumer-facing apps, and QuickNode bundles indexing and Solana-specific tooling, both billed through method-weighted systems that reward light workloads and penalize heavy ones.
For a team building across several chains at once, or one that wants to know its bill before the month starts, NOWNodes’ flat-quota model is the more straightforward fit, and it’s the provider worth benchmarking first if your roadmap includes anything outside the EVM and Solana world. Since standard JSON-RPC calls migrate between providers with little more than a URL change, testing all three against a slice of your real traffic for a week settles the question faster than any pricing page can.
FAQ
Is NOWNodes cheaper than Alchemy and QuickNode?
For most workloads, yes, because NOWNodes’ flat request quotas make costs predictable regardless of which methods you call. Both Alchemy’s compute-unit pricing and QuickNode’s credit pricing can undercut that for light traffic but climb quickly once heavier methods like eth_getLogs or archive queries enter the mix.
Do Alchemy or QuickNode support Bitcoin?
No. Alchemy’s 100+ chains and QuickNode’s roughly 79 chains both skew toward EVM-compatible networks and Solana; neither covers Bitcoin, Litecoin, or privacy coins like Monero the way a broader multi-chain provider such as NOWNodes does.
Can I use more than one of these providers at the same time?
Yes. Running two or three RPC providers side by side — one as primary, one as failover, or split by chain — is a common production pattern that limits how much a single provider’s outage or rate-limit spike can affect your app.
Which provider is best for a small side project or MVP?
NOWNodes’ free tier and flat entry pricing tend to be the easiest to budget for a small or early-stage project, especially one that might eventually need a non-EVM chain. Alchemy and QuickNode’s free tiers are also usable for prototyping, but their variable billing is harder to forecast once real traffic arrives.
Do I need Alchemy’s NFT API or QuickNode’s Streams product, or can I build that myself?
If you’re only checking balances and broadcasting transactions, you likely don’t need either. If your product displays NFT ownership and metadata as a core feature, or depends on continuous filtered event data flowing into a database, building that layer yourself is real engineering time that these tools replace.
