Originally published on DEV Community - August 2025
After spending the last 18 months bouncing between different blockchain ecosystems trying to find the right fit for my team's projects, I've had some... interesting experiences. Today I want to share what I've learned comparing NEAR Protocol and Solana from a developer's perspective - not the marketing fluff you see everywhere, but the real day-to-day stuff that actually matters when you're building.
Let me be upfront: both chains have their strengths and honestly, some pretty frustrating quirks too. If you're looking for someone to tell you one is definitively "better," you might want to look elsewhere. What I can offer is a honest breakdown of what it's actually like to develop on each platform.
The Developer Onboarding Experience (Or: How I Nearly Gave Up on Solana)
NEAR's Approach
NEAR's developer experience feels like it was designed by people who actually remember what it's like to be new to blockchain development. Their documentation doesn't assume you have a PhD in cryptography, and honestly, that was refreshing.
Setting up a NEAR development environment is surprisingly straightforward. You can literally start with JavaScript - yes, regular JavaScript - which was a game-changer for my team coming from traditional web development. The near-cli tool worked out of the box on all our machines (MacOS, Ubuntu, and yes, even Windows), which might sound trivial but trust me, when you've spent three hours trying to get Solana's CLI working on Windows, you appreciate these small wins.
The testnet faucet actually works consistently. I can't tell you how many times I've banged my head against Solana's devnet being slow or their faucet running dry during hackathons.
Solana's Reality Check
Solana's onboarding is... well, let's just say it builds character. The documentation assumes a lot of prior knowledge about Rust, which is fine if you're already in that ecosystem, but my JavaScript-heavy team struggled initially.
The Anchor framework helps a ton once you get over the learning curve, but that curve is steep. I spent probably two weeks just understanding the concept of Program Derived Addresses (PDAs) and account ownership models. Coming from Ethereum or traditional backend development, Solana's account model is genuinely mind-bending at first.
That said, once you "get it," Solana's architecture starts to make sense. The performance benefits become obvious, and you understand why they made these design choices. But the initial friction is real.
Smart Contract Development - The Good, Bad, and Ugly
Programming Languages and Paradigms
This is where things get interesting. NEAR supports both JavaScript and Rust for smart contracts, while Solana is primarily Rust-focused (though there are some C options, but let's be real, nobody's using those unless they have to).
NEAR's JavaScript Support:
Being able to write smart contracts in JavaScript was initially appealing, but I quickly hit some limitations. The JavaScript runtime adds overhead, and for performance-critical applications, you'll probably end up using Rust anyway. However, for prototyping and simpler contracts, JS on NEAR is genuinely useful.
The Rust experience on NEAR is solid. The near-sdk-rs is well-designed, though it doesn't have as many community-contributed libraries as Solana's Anchor ecosystem.
Solana's Rust-First Approach:
Solana's commitment to Rust means better performance and more mature tooling, but it also means a higher barrier to entry. The Anchor framework is genuinely impressive - it abstracts away a lot of Solana's complexity while still giving you access to the underlying power.
One thing I really appreciate about Solana is how the constraint of having to think about account storage explicitly makes you write more efficient code. It's frustrating at first, but it forces better architecture decisions.
Testing and Development Tools
NEAR:
-
near-workspacesfor integration testing is pretty solid - Local sandbox environment works reliably
- Built-in simulation mode for testing contract interactions
- The near-cli makes deployment and interaction straightforward
Solana:
- Anchor's testing framework with TypeScript is excellent once set up
-
solana-test-validatorlocal validator is fast but can be finicky - The Solana Program Library (SPL) has great examples to learn from
- Debugging can be challenging - error messages aren't always helpful
Honestly, I've found NEAR's testing experience to be more beginner-friendly, while Solana's gives you more granular control once you know what you're doing.
Protocol Deep Dive - Where Architecture Matters
Transaction Processing and Finality
NEAR's Approach:
NEAR's Nightshade sharding is genuinely impressive from an engineering standpoint. Transactions finalize in 1-2 seconds consistently, and I've never really had to worry about network congestion affecting my applications. The cross-shard communication works transparently - you don't have to think about which shard your contract is on most of the time.
The gas model is predictable. I can estimate transaction costs reliably, and I haven't been surprised by sudden gas spikes like I have on other networks.
Solana's Reality:
Solana's 400ms block times are impressive when the network is healthy. The throughput numbers they advertise (50,000+ TPS) are real under ideal conditions. But - and this is a big but - the network can get congested, especially during high-demand periods.
I've experienced failed transactions during NFT mints or DeFi activity spikes that required multiple retries. The priority fee system helps, but it adds complexity to transaction handling in your application.
Account Model Differences
This is probably the biggest architectural difference and affects how you design applications.
NEAR's Account Model:
NEAR accounts are human-readable (like alice.near), which is fantastic for UX. The multi-key system lets you have different permission levels for different actions - really useful for application keys that can only perform specific functions.
Smart contracts live in accounts and can hold their own storage. Coming from Ethereum, this feels natural.
Solana's Program and Account Separation:
Solana's approach where programs (smart contracts) are immutable and stateless, with all state stored in separate accounts, was confusing initially but has some real advantages.
The explicit account model means you have to think about data layout upfront, which leads to more efficient applications. But it also means more complexity in your client-side code to manage all these accounts.
Storage Economics
NEAR:
Storage staking on NEAR means you pay once for storage and can get your NEAR back if you delete the data later. It's a clever economic model that prevents state bloat while not charging ongoing rent.
The downside? Large storage requirements can lock up significant amounts of NEAR tokens, which impacts the economics of certain application types.
Solana:
Rent-exempt storage requirements mean you pay upfront to avoid ongoing fees. For small accounts, this is usually fine, but for applications with many user accounts, the costs can add up quickly.
The minimum rent-exempt balance keeps changing based on network conditions, which makes cost estimation tricky for user-facing applications.
Advanced Features - The Differentiators
Cross-Chain and Meta-Transactions
NEAR's Chain Signatures:
NEAR's chain signatures feature is genuinely innovative. Being able to sign transactions for other blockchains directly from NEAR contracts opens up interesting cross-chain possibilities that don't require traditional bridge architectures.
I built a proof-of-concept that could manage Ethereum assets directly from a NEAR contract, and it worked surprisingly well. This is still early technology, but the potential is significant.
Solana's Ecosystem Integrations:
Solana doesn't have native chain signatures like NEAR, but the ecosystem has built some impressive cross-chain solutions. Wormhole integration is solid, and the liquidity bridges generally work well.
Meta-Transactions:
NEAR's meta-transaction support through function call access keys is elegant. Users can interact with your application without holding NEAR tokens if you design it right.
Solana has meta-transaction capabilities through programs like Squads, but it's not as built-in to the protocol level.
Developer Experience Extras
NEAR:
- Near Social (on-chain social features) provides interesting composability options
- Built-in random number generation (though it's not cryptographically secure)
- Cross-contract calls feel natural and are async by default
- Aurora EVM compatibility for Ethereum migration
Solana:
- Compressed NFTs for massive scalability improvements
- State compression techniques that dramatically reduce storage costs
- Robust oracle ecosystem with Pyth and others
- Program upgradeability (though this is being phased out for security)
The Real Talk - What Problems Will You Actually Face?
NEAR's Pain Points
Ecosystem Size: The developer tooling ecosystem is smaller. You'll often find yourself building things that exist as mature libraries in Ethereum or Solana ecosystems.
Performance Ceiling: While NEAR's sharding helps with scalability, individual contract performance can be limiting for compute-heavy applications.
Documentation Gaps: Some advanced features are poorly documented. I spent way too much time reading source code to understand cross-contract callback patterns.
DevNet Reliability: The testnet occasionally has issues that can block development for hours.
Solana's Reality Check
Network Stability: During high-traffic periods, transactions can fail unpredictably. Your application needs robust error handling and retry logic.
Development Complexity: The account model, rent requirements, and Rust requirement create a steep learning curve.
Breaking Changes: The ecosystem moves fast, sometimes too fast. I've had to update code multiple times due to breaking changes in dependencies.
Resource Requirements: Running a local validator for testing requires significant system resources.
Cost Analysis - What You'll Actually Spend
Transaction Costs
NEAR: Transaction fees are typically 0.0001-0.001 NEAR (roughly $0.0001-$0.001 at current prices). Predictable and low.
Solana: Base transaction fees are around 0.000005 SOL ($0.0001-$0.001), but priority fees during congestion can increase this significantly. Less predictable.
Development Costs
NEAR: Storage staking can be significant for data-heavy applications. For a typical DApp with moderate storage needs, expect to stake 1-5 NEAR per user account.
Solana: Account rent exemption costs are generally lower for simple accounts but can add up for complex state. Plan for around 0.001-0.01 SOL per user account typically.
When to Choose What?
Choose NEAR if:
- You're coming from traditional web development
- You want predictable transaction costs and timing
- Cross-chain functionality is important to your use case
- You need human-readable accounts for better UX
- You're building social applications or need on-chain identity features
Choose Solana if:
- You need maximum throughput and lowest latency
- You're already comfortable with Rust
- You're building DeFi applications where performance is critical
- You need access to a large ecosystem of existing protocols
- You can handle network instability in exchange for better performance
Final Thoughts
After building on both platforms, I genuinely think they're solving different problems. NEAR feels like it's optimized for developer happiness and user experience, while Solana is optimized for raw performance and efficiency.
If I were starting a new project today, I'd probably choose NEAR for anything user-facing where transaction predictability matters (social apps, gaming, simple DeFi). For high-frequency trading bots or performance-critical DeFi protocols, Solana would be my choice despite the complexity.
The biggest mistake I see developers make is trying to port Ethereum patterns directly to either platform. Both NEAR and Solana have architectural choices that work best when you embrace their paradigms rather than fighting them.
Whatever you choose, budget extra time for learning the platform-specific patterns. The documentation will get you started, but understanding the nuances that make applications performant and reliable takes hands-on experience.
That's my honest take after spending considerable time with both platforms. Your mileage may vary, but I hope this helps you make a more informed choice for your next project.
Have you built on either NEAR or Solana? I'd love to hear about your experiences in the comments. And if you found this comparison useful, feel free to share it with other developers navigating these choices.
About the Author: I'm a full-stack developer who's been building on various blockchain platforms for the past 3 years. When I'm not debugging smart contracts, I'm probably overthinking developer tooling choices or writing overly long blog posts about them.
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