---
title: "What is Solana?"
canonical: https://wavect.io/glossary/solana/
language: en
description: "A high-throughput, low-fee blockchain with a runtime distinct from the EVM. Different programming model, different trade-offs."
image: "https://wavect.io/img/general/bak/open_graph_preview.jpg"
---

TECHNOLOGIES

# Solana

A high-throughput, low-fee blockchain with a runtime distinct from the EVM. Different programming model, different trade-offs.

Last reviewed: 2026-05-24 by [Kevin Riedl](/team/kevin-riedl/) [wiki ↗](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q139796365)

Solana is not [EVM](/glossary/evm/) -compatible. [Smart contracts](/glossary/smart-contract/) (called “programs” on Solana) are written in Rust, deployed as BPF bytecode, and executed by the Solana runtime. The architecture optimises for throughput (thousands of TPS) and low fees, at the cost of higher hardware requirements for validators and a different (some say more centralised) decentralisation profile.

For consumer applications where the user pays sub-cent fees and confirmation is sub-second, Solana is hard to beat. For deep DeFi composability with the EVM ecosystem, the lift to bridge across is non-trivial. The right chain depends on which trade-off matters more for your product.

Worked example of the gotcha that bites EVM teams: Solana’s programming model is account-based, not contract-state-based. You pass every account a transaction touches explicitly, you manage rent on accounts, and you think about parallel execution from the start. A team fluent in Solidity will routinely under-estimate this ramp-up, ship code that works in the happy path, and then hit edge cases around account ownership and rent that have no Ethereum analogue. Budget real time for the model shift; it is not a syntax translation.

The honest trade-off, and the founder mistake of “pick the fast cheap chain”: Solana’s validator hardware requirements are higher than Ethereum’s, so the validator set is smaller, and historically there have been network outages (fewer recently). For consumer payments and high-volume apps that trade-off is usually fine and the throughput is worth it. For a system whose core promise is censorship resistance, examine the threat model carefully before assuming Solana clears the bar.

The ecosystem cost is the other half of the decision. The deep, composable DeFi and tooling that lives on EVM chains does not all exist on Solana, and bridging assets across is a non-trivial, security-sensitive operation in its own right, not a free import. If your product needs to plug into existing on-chain protocols, that pull-toward-EVM is real and should be weighed against Solana’s raw performance. If your product is mostly self-contained and throughput-bound (payments, consumer apps, gaming), the performance wins and the smaller ecosystem rarely bites. Wavect ships in both Solana and EVM across the [web3](/glossary/web3/) stack. We have no chain bias; we have a use-case bias.

// FAQ

## FAQs

### Solana or an EVM chain?

Solana wins on throughput and per-transaction cost; EVM wins on DeFi composability and developer ecosystem. For consumer payments and high-volume consumer apps Solana is hard to beat. For deep DeFi integrations the lift to bridge is non-trivial.

### What is the biggest gotcha when moving from EVM to Solana?

The programming model. Solana’s account-based architecture is different from Ethereum’s contract-state model: you pass accounts explicitly, you manage rent, you think about parallelism. Engineers fluent in Solidity routinely under-estimate the ramp-up to ship safely on Solana.

### Is Solana decentralised enough for production?

Depends on what you need. Validator hardware requirements are higher than Ethereum’s, so the validator set is smaller; outages have happened historically, fewer recently. For consumer apps the trade-off is usually fine; for systems where censorship resistance is the core promise, examine the threat model carefully.

Related terms

- [Web3](/glossary/web3/)
- [Smart Contract](/glossary/smart-contract/)
- [EVM](/glossary/evm/)

Related services

- [Blockchain](/services/blockchain/)

Related case studies

- [Account Abstraction](/case-studies/account-abstraction/)

Related guides

- [How to choose a software development agency](/software-development-guide/how-to-choose-a-software-agency/)

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