Solana vs Sui: Comparing the Two Cheaper Alternatives to Ethereum

Compare Solana and Sui, two high-performance L1 chains challenging Ethereum with faster transactions, lower fees, and scalable architectures.

Introduction

Ethereum (ETH) set the standard for programmable blockchains and transformed cryptocurrency from a simple payment mechanism into a platform for broader innovation. However, its growing popularity exposed scalability issues, including limited transaction speeds and high fees. 

These challenges have created space for newer blockchain ecosystems like Solana (SOL) and Sui (SUI), which aim to deliver faster, cheaper, and more efficient alternatives.

Solana has since evolved into a high-throughput network, though its periodic outages have raised concerns about stability.

Sui, released in 2023, also prioritises performance and scalability, leveraging the Move programming language and parallel processing to expedite transactions. 

While Sui demonstrates strong technical potential, it has yet to achieve widespread adoption.

Both Solana and Sui support smart contracts, low transaction fees, and high throughput, but which is a bigger threat to Ethereum?

Let’s compare two cryptocurrencies billed as faster, cheaper alternatives to Ethereum.

Key Differences Between SOL and SUI

Solana Overview

Solana is a high-performance, single-chain blockchain that combines a delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus model with a unique timekeeping method called Proof of History (PoH). 

PoH acts as a cryptographic clock, timestamping transactions to create a verifiable order of events without requiring global consensus at each step. This eliminates the need for constant communication between nodes to verify the order of transactions.

Anatoly Yakovenko introduced PoH in a November 2017 white paper titled ‘Solana: A New Architecture for a High Performance Blockchain’. In February 2018, Yakovenko collaborated with former Qualcomm colleagues Greg Fitzgerald, Stephen Akridge, and three others to establish Solana.

Solana is one of the fastest blockchains, averaging over 1,000 transactions per second (tps). This high throughput supports a diverse range of dapps including NFT marketplaces, play-to-earn (P2E) games, and various DeFi tools.​

Check out SOL’s current value and recent price trends.

Sui Overview

Sui is a unique Layer-1 (L1) blockchain and smart contract platform designed to make digital asset ownership fast, private, secure, and accessible. It uses the Move programming language, which enhances developer productivity while encouraging experimentation.

Evan Cheng, Adeniyi Abiodun, Sam Blackshear, George Danezis, and Kostas Chalkias founded Mysten Labs, the team behind Sui, in June 2023. Sui’s mission is to deliver the benefits of Web3 with the accessibility of Web2. Sui hosts a growing ecosystem of dapps including DeFi tools and  P2E titles It also supports NFTs and offers a native central limit order book to help dapps access liquidity.

Sui’s architecture allows the network to scale horizontally, enabling it to process transactions in parallel and avoid common performance bottlenecks. While Sui claims it is capable of processing up to 297,000 tps, Suiscan indicates real-world daily averages closer to 50 tps. 

To promote better user experiences and wider Web3 adoption, Sui introduced zkLogin, a feature that allows users to access decentralised applications (dapps) with familiar web credentials (such as Google or Facebook). 

Check out SUI’s current value and recent price trends.

Ecosystem Comparison: SOL and SUI

1. Consensus Mechanism

Solana combines a delegated PoS consensus model with the PoH timekeeping system. PoH complements PoS by allowing nodes to generate local timestamps. This reduces the need to broadcast timing data across the network, improving throughput and efficiency.

Sui also uses a PoS consensus model, but introduces some unique elements. It separates consensus from transaction execution, allowing for parallel processing and more efficient scaling. It also aims to keep gas fees predictable by using a fixed reference price that resets each epoch and ties rewards to reference price adherence.

2. Scalability

With lightning-fast speeds and median transaction fees of US$0.00064, Solana is well-suited to applications of all sizes. It also reports a net-zero carbon footprint, making it greener than most blockchain projects.

While Sui’s theoretical speeds aren’t externally verifiable, its real-world averages still place it among the faster blockchains. SUI transaction fees are calculated based on computation and data storage and average around $0.001, not including optional tips for prioritised processing.

3. Programming Language

Solana smart contracts are coded in Rust, a programming language that bolsters performance and enhances security through rapid execution and robust memory safety characteristics. Novice developers can use the Anchor framework to simplify the writing, testing, and deployment of dapps. 

Sui programs are coded in Move. Move’s architecture offers ‘win-win abstractions’ that provide developers more expressive power while making the execution layer more efficient. The resulting ‘object data model’ improves security while enabling scale.

Tokenomics and Utility Comparison: SOL vs SUI

Tokenomics

Solana is inflationary, with ongoing network emissions (staking rewards) and no hard cap on SOL’s supply. Its model incentivises validators to continue securing the network by rewarding them with newly issued tokens. Solana’s emissions rate started at 8% annually, set to decrease by 15% each year in order to reduce inflation over time to a target rate of 1.5%.

Sui has a hard cap of 10 billion tokens, with seven million yet to be released as of mid-2025. Sui’s carefully structured token distribution is aimed at supporting sustainable development while promoting decentralisation. A portion of SUI gas fees goes into a storage fund that temporarily removes it from circulation, serving a similar function to ‘burning’. 

Utility

SOL is the Solana network’s native token. SOL holders secure the network through staking, purchase various dapps, pay transaction fees, and buy Solana NFTs. SOL plays a prominent role in Solana’s DeFi ecosystem, often serving as a base trading pair on decentralised exchanges (DEXs) like Jupiter, the network’s leading DEX aggregator.

SUI is the native cryptocurrency of the Sui ecosystem. Similar in its respective utility to SOL, it is used for staking, transaction fees, NFT purchases, and dapp access. The token is integral to developer-focused tools and infrastructure that aim to make Web3 more accessible, including gasless transactions and zkLogin-based user authentication.

Other Real-World Use Cases

Solana (SOL) is accepted by a number of merchants in sectors such as travel, fashion, and Web3 development. Platforms such as CoinGate, NOWPayments, and Crypto.com allow SOL holders to shop a wide array of mainstream retailers. Solana also entered the futures market when the first exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to SOL launched in March 2025.

Sui (SUI) isn’t as widely accepted as SOL, as it is still gaining traction with DeFi enthusiasts. Most of its applications are tied to the Sui ecosystem and include GameFi and NFTs. A few companies, including Grayscale and VanEck, do offer financial products based on SUI, and Canary Capital filed for the first-ever Sui ETF in March 2025.

Key Pricing Moments

Cryptocurrencies are a volatile asset class prone to significant price fluctuations based on crypto influencers, technology upgrades, world events, macroeconomic trends, and the fickle hand of the market.

Here is a brief price timeline for SOL and SUI.

SOL — Key Price Events

SUI — Key Price Events

Developments and Roadmaps: SOL and SUI

Solana’s Roadmap

Firedancer, a high-performance validator client in development for Solana by Jump Crypto, is Solana’s roadmap highlight. Firedancer will increase validator client diversity through a complete C++ rewrite of Solana’s Rust architecture, enhancing the network’s speed and resilience. 

• FireDancer is slated for mainnet release in 2025, with Frankendancer as the beta version. 
• In April 2025, Solana Labs unveiled Seeker, its second-generation Web3 smartphone. Building on the original Saga, Seeker includes deeper integration with Solana dapps, easy in-app token transactions, and secure mobile key storage.
• In May 2025, Solana developer firm Anza announced plans for Alpenglow, a sweeping overhaul of the network’s consensus protocol aimed at making Solana the highest-performing Layer-1 network once again.

Sui’s Roadmap

Sui’s roadmap features ambitious projects by a variety of developers, with a number of interesting launches in 2025:

• Live in March, automated market maker (AMM) Steamm offers a ‘Bank’ feature that allows liquidity providers to earn yields from trading fees and lending activities simultaneously. 
• Mysten Labs, the company behind the development of Sui network, launched Walrus, a blockchain-agnostic decentralised storage protocol enabling large-scale, media-rich data to be stored in a distributed manner. Applications include music, video, websites, and artificial intelligence (AI) datasets. 
• Sui has numerous ‘maximum extractable value’ (MEV) protocol enhancements in the works, such as SIP-45, a gas-pricing proposal aimed at preventing transaction delays during periods of network congestion.

Community Comparison: SOL and SUI

Both Solana and Sui have active, fast-growing communities, but their ecosystems differ in terms of maturity and engagement style. 

• Solana’s community has grown rapidly since 2021, with strong representation across DeFi, NFTs, meme culture, and gaming. It also benefits from in-person events like APEX and Breakpointlike Solana Hacker Houses, which help cultivate a hands-on, developer-driven culture.

• Sui’s community is younger but strategically focused on onboarding mainstream users and builders. Its annual Sui Connect and Basecamp events and ambassador programme reflect an organised effort to educate newcomers and grow its ecosystem from the ground up.

Social Media Following

• Solana has an estimated 4 million followers across Twitter, Discord, YouTube, and Telegram, with consistently high engagement around token launches, product updates, and meme coin activity. Influential ecosystem voices and visibility on major platforms contribute to its strong online footprint.

• Sui gathers about half as many followers across its core platforms, which offer regular updates from the Sui Foundation and active outreach to non-crypto audiences. It receives publicity boosts from milestone announcements and developer activations like the zkLogin and DeepBook integrations.

SOL vs SUI: A Summary

Conclusion: Solana vs Sui

Solana and Sui each present compelling alternatives to Ethereum as high-performance blockchain networks. 

Solana boasts a mature ecosystem, fast transaction processing, and wide recognition within the crypto space. Sui leverages the Move programming language and a developer-friendly architecture designed to support scalability and new applications. What’s more favourable depends on the use case.

Crypto traders might opt for SOL’s standing as a big cap crypto and established presence, or Sui’s accessible onboarding and predictable fees. For developers, they might sway between both networks, given Solana’s increasing popularity and Sui’s creator royalty model.

Always research a token’s development team, tokenomics, price trends, technology stack, and roadmap before considering a purchase. A trader should never risk more than they can afford to lose.

Due Diligence and Do Your Own Research

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