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Network

Network Congestion

A state in which the volume of transaction submissions to Solana leaders exceeds available block space or processing capacity, causing elevated transaction drop rates, increased time-to-confirmation, and rising priority fee requirements to land. Congestion is typically account-local (concentrated around hot accounts like popular DEX pools or NFT mints) rather than global, reflecting Solana's local fee market design. Mitigation strategies include increasing priority fees, submitting directly to the leader's TPU, routing through staked RPC nodes (SWQoS), and using Jito bundles.

IDnetwork-congestion
Plain meaning

Plain meaning

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A state in which the volume of transaction submissions to Solana leaders exceeds available block space or processing capacity, causing elevated transaction drop rates, increased time-to-confirmation, and rising priority fee requirements to land. Congestion is typically account-local (concentrated around hot accounts like popular DEX pools or NFT mints) rather than global, reflecting Solana's local fee market design. Mitigation strategies include increasing priority fees, submitting directly to the leader's TPU, routing through staked RPC nodes (SWQoS), and using Jito bundles.

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Network Congestion (network-congestion)
Category: Network
Definition: A state in which the volume of transaction submissions to Solana leaders exceeds available block space or processing capacity, causing elevated transaction drop rates, increased time-to-confirmation, and rising priority fee requirements to land. Congestion is typically account-local (concentrated around hot accounts like popular DEX pools or NFT mints) rather than global, reflecting Solana's local fee market design. Mitigation strategies include increasing priority fees, submitting directly to the leader's TPU, routing through staked RPC nodes (SWQoS), and using Jito bundles.
Related: TPS (Transactions Per Second), Priority Fee, Transaction Landing
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Branch

TPS (Transactions Per Second)

The rate at which a Solana cluster processes and commits transactions; Solana's theoretical maximum exceeds 65,000 TPS due to its parallel execution model, though real-world sustained throughput on Mainnet Beta typically ranges from 2,000–5,000 non-vote TPS under normal load. Vote transactions (used for consensus) make up a significant portion of all on-chain activity and are counted separately. High TPS is enabled by Proof of History timestamps, Sealevel parallel execution, and Gulf Stream mempool-less forwarding.

TransactionParallel Transaction Execution
Open term
Branch

Priority Fee

An optional additional fee paid on top of the base fee to increase the likelihood that a transaction is processed quickly by the current leader, expressed as a price in micro-lamports per compute unit (CU). The total priority fee equals (compute unit price × compute unit limit) / 1,000,000 lamports. Leaders sort transactions in their queue by fee-per-CU, so setting a competitive priority fee is the primary mechanism for ensuring reliable transaction landing during congestion.

Compute Units (CU)Base Fee
Open term
Branch

Transaction Landing

The outcome of a transaction being successfully included and confirmed in a Solana block, as opposed to being dropped, expiring, or failing simulation. Landing probability is influenced by priority fee competitiveness, blockhash freshness (must be within ~150 slots of creation), submission routing (direct to leader vs. RPC rebroadcast), and network congestion on the accounts involved. Developers optimize landing rates by using current-leader TPU endpoints, setting appropriate priority fees, and preflight-checking transactions before submission.

Stake-Weighted QoS (SWQoS)
Open term
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Network

TPS (Transactions Per Second)

The rate at which a Solana cluster processes and commits transactions; Solana's theoretical maximum exceeds 65,000 TPS due to its parallel execution model, though real-world sustained throughput on Mainnet Beta typically ranges from 2,000–5,000 non-vote TPS under normal load. Vote transactions (used for consensus) make up a significant portion of all on-chain activity and are counted separately. High TPS is enabled by Proof of History timestamps, Sealevel parallel execution, and Gulf Stream mempool-less forwarding.

Open term
Network

Priority Fee

An optional additional fee paid on top of the base fee to increase the likelihood that a transaction is processed quickly by the current leader, expressed as a price in micro-lamports per compute unit (CU). The total priority fee equals (compute unit price × compute unit limit) / 1,000,000 lamports. Leaders sort transactions in their queue by fee-per-CU, so setting a competitive priority fee is the primary mechanism for ensuring reliable transaction landing during congestion.

Open term
Network

Transaction Landing

The outcome of a transaction being successfully included and confirmed in a Solana block, as opposed to being dropped, expiring, or failing simulation. Landing probability is influenced by priority fee competitiveness, blockhash freshness (must be within ~150 slots of creation), submission routing (direct to leader vs. RPC rebroadcast), and network congestion on the accounts involved. Developers optimize landing rates by using current-leader TPU endpoints, setting appropriate priority fees, and preflight-checking transactions before submission.

Open term
Network

Node Count

The total number of validators participating in a Solana cluster at a given time. Node count is a measure of network decentralization and resilience — more validators mean greater geographic distribution and fault tolerance. Solana mainnet-beta typically operates with 1,500-3,000+ validators. Node count is queryable via the getClusterNodes RPC method.

Open term
Commonly confused with

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Networknakamoto-coefficient

Nakamoto Coefficient

The minimum number of independent entities (validators, mining pools, or staking providers) that would need to collude to compromise or halt a blockchain network, typically by controlling 33%+ of stake or hash power. A higher Nakamoto coefficient indicates greater decentralization. Solana's Nakamoto coefficient fluctuates around 19-31 depending on stake distribution among validators.

Open term
Networknode-count

Node Count

The total number of validators participating in a Solana cluster at a given time. Node count is a measure of network decentralization and resilience — more validators mean greater geographic distribution and fault tolerance. Solana mainnet-beta typically operates with 1,500-3,000+ validators. Node count is queryable via the getClusterNodes RPC method.

Open term
Networktoken-extensions-network

Token Extensions (Network Impact)

The aggregate effect on Solana network resources — primarily compute units and account space — introduced by Token Extensions (Token-2022), which adds on-chain extension data and additional CPI calls compared to the original SPL Token program. Tokens with multiple extensions (e.g., transfer fees + confidential transfers + interest-bearing) require significantly more compute budget per instruction, affecting transaction size, CPI depth, and priority fee calculations. Developers must account for the higher CU consumption of Token-2022 instructions when setting compute unit limits and priority fees to ensure reliable transaction landing.

Open term
Related terms

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Networktps

TPS (Transactions Per Second)

The rate at which a Solana cluster processes and commits transactions; Solana's theoretical maximum exceeds 65,000 TPS due to its parallel execution model, though real-world sustained throughput on Mainnet Beta typically ranges from 2,000–5,000 non-vote TPS under normal load. Vote transactions (used for consensus) make up a significant portion of all on-chain activity and are counted separately. High TPS is enabled by Proof of History timestamps, Sealevel parallel execution, and Gulf Stream mempool-less forwarding.

Open term
Networkpriority-fee

Priority Fee

An optional additional fee paid on top of the base fee to increase the likelihood that a transaction is processed quickly by the current leader, expressed as a price in micro-lamports per compute unit (CU). The total priority fee equals (compute unit price × compute unit limit) / 1,000,000 lamports. Leaders sort transactions in their queue by fee-per-CU, so setting a competitive priority fee is the primary mechanism for ensuring reliable transaction landing during congestion.

Open term
Networktransaction-landing

Transaction Landing

The outcome of a transaction being successfully included and confirmed in a Solana block, as opposed to being dropped, expiring, or failing simulation. Landing probability is influenced by priority fee competitiveness, blockhash freshness (must be within ~150 slots of creation), submission routing (direct to leader vs. RPC rebroadcast), and network congestion on the accounts involved. Developers optimize landing rates by using current-leader TPU endpoints, setting appropriate priority fees, and preflight-checking transactions before submission.

Open term
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Network

Mainnet Beta

Solana's primary production cluster where real SOL and real economic activity occur; the "beta" designation reflects the network's ongoing protocol development despite being fully live since March 2020. It uses the same architecture as other clusters but with real validator stakes, live staking rewards, and permanent on-chain state. All production dApps, tokens, and NFTs exist on Mainnet Beta.

Open term
Network

Devnet

A persistent public Solana cluster intended for application development and testing, running the same software version as Mainnet Beta but with no real economic value. Devnet SOL can be freely airdropped via the CLI or faucet APIs, and the ledger may be reset periodically by Solana Labs. Developers use Devnet to test programs and integrations before deploying to Mainnet Beta.

Open term
Network

Testnet

A public Solana cluster used primarily by the Solana core team and validators to test new software releases, performance benchmarks, and network upgrades under real network conditions before they reach Mainnet Beta. Testnet SOL has no monetary value, and the ledger is reset more frequently than Devnet; it is less suitable for application development and more suited for validator operators validating their infrastructure.

Open term
Network

TPS (Transactions Per Second)

The rate at which a Solana cluster processes and commits transactions; Solana's theoretical maximum exceeds 65,000 TPS due to its parallel execution model, though real-world sustained throughput on Mainnet Beta typically ranges from 2,000–5,000 non-vote TPS under normal load. Vote transactions (used for consensus) make up a significant portion of all on-chain activity and are counted separately. High TPS is enabled by Proof of History timestamps, Sealevel parallel execution, and Gulf Stream mempool-less forwarding.

Open term