Shyft bundles RPC + parsed transaction data + NFT/token APIs into one product. Smaller team than Helius but a generous free tier and fast SDK make it a hackathon favorite.
What you get
- Standard Solana RPC
- Parsed transaction history (decoded instructions, amounts, programs touched)
- NFT API + portfolio API
- SDK in TypeScript, Python, Go
Where Shyft shines
- Wallet portfolio views. "Show me everything in this wallet, parsed nicely" is a one-call operation.
- Hackathon weekends. The SDK gets you to a working dapp in an hour. No piecing together RPC + DAS + Jupiter quote.
- Smaller teams. Their free tier doesn't punish you for moderate use the way Helius's can.
Where Shyft falls short
- Production scale. The team is smaller and the infra has had more variance in latency than the bigger providers.
- Compressed NFT depth. Helius's DAS is the reference; Shyft's coverage is good but plays catch-up.
Bottom line
Pick Shyft when speed-to-prototype matters more than peak-load reliability. Migrate to Helius or Syndica when you scale up.