Solana doesn't have logs the way Ethereum does. It doesn't have an account-per-contract model. A transaction on Solana is a list of instructions calling on-chain programs, each touching a set of accounts, with compute units metered separately from the lamport fee. A generic EVM-style explorer can't decode that. The Solana ecosystem has its own native tooling, and which one fits depends on what you actually need to read: token transfers, NFT mints, DeFi positions, validator behavior, or raw program-level instructions.
This guide compares six explorers in active use as of 2026: Solscan, Helius, SolanaFM, Solana Beach, the official Solana Explorer, and XRAY by Helius. We pull pricing and rate-limit data from each provider's public docs and skip anything we can't verify.
Why does Solana need its own explorers?
Solana's account model and runtime differ enough from EVM chains that Etherscan-style tooling fails on the basics. Transactions are bundles of instructions, not single calls. There are no event logs by default. Compute units, priority fees, and address lookup tables all need first-class decoding. Solana-native explorers parse this structure; ported EVM explorers don't.
The practical gaps you hit on a non-Solana-native explorer:
No instruction parsing. A Jupiter swap shows as opaque program calls instead of "swapped 100 USDC for 0.6 SOL via Raydium pool X."
No SPL token metadata. Token-2022 extensions (transfer fees, confidential transfers, interest-bearing balances) need explicit decoders.
No compute-unit accounting. Failed transactions on Solana usually fail because of compute or priority-fee mispricing. Without that breakdown, debugging is guesswork.
Address lookup tables stay opaque. Versioned transactions reference accounts by table index. An explorer that doesn't dereference the table shows base58 nonsense.
How the major Solana explorers compare
The Solana explorer market splits into three roles: consumer-facing analytics dashboards (Solscan, Solana Beach), developer-grade RPC and indexing platforms (Helius, SolanaFM), and minimal first-party tools (Solana Explorer, XRAY). Pricing tiers, rate limits, and unique data views differ enough that most teams end up using two.
Explorer | Free tier | Paid pricing | API features | Strengths |
Solscan | Public API with reduced rate limits and endpoints | Pro API tiered (custom; contact sales). Default Level 1 key includes 10M compute units | Account, transaction, token, NFT, DeFi endpoints | Most familiar UI for retail; deep token and NFT views |
Helius | $0, 1M credits/month, 10 RPC req/s, 2 req/s on DAS and Enhanced APIs | Developer $49/mo (10M credits, 50 RPC req/s), Business $499/mo (100M credits, 200 RPC req/s), Professional $999/mo (200M credits, 500 RPC req/s) | Enhanced parsed transactions, DAS API, webhooks, Enhanced WebSockets, LaserStream gRPC | Best-in-class instruction parsing; webhooks for indexing |
SolanaFM | $0, 10 RPS, 1 GB bandwidth (with endpoint-specific caps; default 5 RPS without API key, up to 15 RPS with key) | Custom; contact sales | Account, transaction, token endpoints; CSV export | Acquired by Jupiter; strong DeFi-aware decoding |
Solana Beach | Web UI free; API tier on request | Custom | Validator, epoch, stake, network metrics | Validator and staking telemetry, network health |
Solana Explorer (official) | Free, no API | N/A | None (web UI only) | Canonical, runs from Solana Foundation; cluster switcher |
XRAY | Free, no API (uses Helius backend) | N/A | None | Cleanest plain-English transaction descriptions |
Solscan
Solscan is the explorer most Solana retail users land on first. The interface mirrors Etherscan, with search by address, transaction signature, token, or domain, and dedicated tabs for tokens, NFT collections, leaderboards, and analytics. Its API splits into a free public tier with reduced limits and a paid Pro tier with broader endpoint coverage and higher rate limits.
Strengths in 2026: deep token holder lists, NFT collection views with floor price and trade history, and DeFi pool dashboards. Weaknesses: instruction-level parsing is shallower than Helius, and Pro pricing is gated behind sales contact rather than published tiers, which complicates capacity planning. Solscan is a good default when you want a Bloomberg-terminal feel for Solana assets and don't need to write integration code.
Helius and XRAY
Helius is the developer infrastructure provider; XRAY is its consumer-facing explorer. Both are powered by the same Enhanced Transactions API, which decodes SPL token transfers, NFT events, DeFi swaps, and program calls into structured JSON instead of raw instruction data. For teams indexing Solana, Helius is usually the first integration.
Per Helius's published pricing, the Free plan includes 1M monthly credits and 10 RPC requests per second, with 2 RPS on the DAS API and Enhanced APIs. Developer at $49/month lifts that to 10M credits and 50 RPC RPS. Business at $499/month gives 100M credits and 200 RPC RPS, and Professional at $999/month allocates 200M credits and 500 RPC RPS. LaserStream gRPC is available on Developer (devnet only) and on Business and Professional tiers for mainnet. Webhooks are the differentiator most teams cite: pushing parsed events to your backend is faster to wire up than polling.
XRAY is the public explorer face of the same parser. It produces the most readable plain-English descriptions of any Solana explorer. A complex Jupiter route with five hops shows as a sentence, not a stack of base58 program addresses. If you're trying to explain a transaction to a non-developer, XRAY is the link to send.
SolanaFM
SolanaFM positions itself between Solscan's retail polish and Helius's developer focus. The web explorer parses DeFi transactions cleanly and exposes a structured API for accounts, transactions, and tokens, with CSV export endpoints that matter for tax and accounting workflows. Its rate-limits page lists a $0 free tier at 10 RPS and 1 GB of bandwidth, with a default 5 RPS without an API key and up to 15 RPS once a key is attached. Per-endpoint caps apply: the CSV transfer export is throttled to 1 RPS.
SolanaFM was acquired by Jupiter in 2024, and the product roadmap has tilted toward swap and DeFi-aware decoding since. Pricing for production tiers is custom and gated behind contact-sales. For workflows that need clean CSVs of token transfers for a portfolio of wallets, SolanaFM is the path of least resistance.
Solana Beach and the official Solana Explorer
Solana Beach focuses on validator-set and network telemetry: epoch progress, vote credit performance, stake distribution, skip rate by validator, and cluster health. If you stake SOL and care which validator you delegate to, Solana Beach is the right tool. It doesn't try to be a transaction explorer in the Etherscan sense, and you'll usually pair it with Solscan or XRAY for asset-level views.
The official Solana Explorer at explorer.solana.com, run by the Solana Foundation, is the canonical reference. It's plain, fast, and switches cleanly between mainnet, devnet, testnet, and custom RPC clusters. There's no API and no fancy parsing. Use it when you want a neutral source of truth, when you're debugging across clusters, or when you suspect a third-party explorer is showing stale data.
Which explorer should you actually use?
Most Solana teams settle on a stack of two or three. A common pattern: Helius or SolanaFM as the indexing API behind your product, Solscan or XRAY as the user-facing transaction link in support tickets and confirmations, and the official Solana Explorer as the tiebreaker when something looks wrong. Solana Beach earns a spot for staking and validator analytics.
Building a product that indexes Solana. Helius. Webhooks, parsed transactions, and published pricing tiers make it the cleanest fit.
Sending users a "view your transaction" link. XRAY for plain-English descriptions, Solscan for users used to Etherscan-style detail.
Tax and accounting CSV export. SolanaFM for transfer history; Solscan for token-level holder data.
Validator selection and staking. Solana Beach.
Debugging a stuck or failed transaction. Helius's parsed view plus Solana Explorer for the unfiltered raw transaction.
What about Solana-specific data like compute units and Token-2022?
Compute units, priority fees, and Token-2022 extensions are the data points that separate a real Solana explorer from an EVM port. Helius and Solscan both decode compute-unit consumption alongside the standard fee, which is the first thing to check when debugging a failed transaction. Token-2022 extensions are still uneven across explorers in 2026.
If you're debugging a failed swap or a transaction that hit the compute limit, the workflow is: open the signature in Helius or XRAY for the parsed view, cross-reference with Solana Explorer for the raw instruction list, and check the compute-budget instruction at the top of the transaction. Priority fees show as a separate setComputeUnitPrice instruction. For Token-2022 mints with transfer-fee or interest-bearing extensions, Solscan's token detail page tends to surface the extension config most clearly today, but coverage varies by extension type.
Methodology and sources
Pricing and rate-limit figures in this guide are pulled from each provider's official documentation as of May 2026. Helius tier pricing comes from the Helius billing plans page. SolanaFM rate limits come from the SolanaFM developer documentation. Solscan tier structure is described in Solscan's API documentation; specific Pro pricing is custom and not published. Where a specific number isn't published by the provider, we omit it rather than estimate.
Sources: