EVM vs Solana VM: Execution Model

Massive ecosystem: Over 4,000 live dApps and a $50B+ DeFi TVL. This matters for projects requiring deep liquidity and established integrations like Aave, Uniswap, and Lido. The bytecode standard ensures contracts are portable across 50+ L2s and sidechains (Arbitrum, Polygon, Base).

Deterministic, single-threaded processing. Transactions are executed in strict order, simplifying state management and security audits. This matters for complex DeFi protocols where transaction ordering is critical. The gas auction model prioritizes fee payers but can lead to volatile costs during congestion.

Sealevel runtime processes thousands of non-conflicting transactions in parallel. This matters for high-frequency trading (HFT) and gaming dApps requiring sub-second finality. Supports ~5,000 TPS with 400ms block times, enabling real-time applications like Tensor NFT trades and Drift perpetual swaps.

Explicit state accounting: Developers must pre-declare all accounts a transaction will touch, enabling parallelization. This matters for optimizing performance but adds complexity. The fee market is localized to contended state (e.g., popular NFT mints), keeping base fees under $0.001 for most transactions.

Deterministic, single-threaded execution: Transactions are processed in strict order with explicit gas fees. This matters for applications where predictable, atomic state changes are critical (e.g., complex DeFi composability). However, it limits throughput and can lead to network congestion and high fees during peak demand.

Explicit state accounting: Developers must pre-declare all accounts a transaction will read/write, enabling parallelism but adding complexity. This matters for teams comfortable with Rust and willing to optimize for raw performance, but it creates a steeper learning curve versus the EVM's more abstracted state model.

Massive ecosystem compatibility: Over 90% of DeFi TVL ($50B+) and 4,000+ dApps are built on EVM-compatible chains (Arbitrum, Base, Polygon). This matters for protocols requiring deep liquidity and teams prioritizing developer hiring with Solidity/ Vyper skills.

Proven security model: The EVM's sequential, single-threaded execution provides deterministic finality and has been stress-tested for 8+ years with over $1T in settled value. This matters for institutional DeFi, stablecoins, and custody solutions where auditability and conservative risk models are paramount.

Native performance scaling: Solana's Sealevel runtime executes transactions in parallel, achieving 2,000-5,000 TPS for real user activity. This matters for high-frequency trading (DEXs like Jupiter), NFT marketplaces, and social apps where sub-second latency and high throughput are non-negotiable.

Global state efficiency: Solana's architecture treats state as a global database, leading to extremely low transaction fees ($0.001 average) and predictable compute costs. This matters for consumer-grade applications (games, micropayments) and protocols that require frequent, small on-chain interactions.

Sequential processing limit: Under high demand, the single-threaded EVM leads to network congestion, fee spikes (> $50 during peaks), and failed transactions. This matters as a critical risk for protocols with unpredictable load or time-sensitive operations, requiring complex L2 scaling strategies.

Validator requirements: Achieving high throughput requires specialized, high-performance hardware and optimized clients (e.g., Jito, Firedancer). This matters for infrastructure teams as it increases operational overhead and centralization pressures compared to the more lightweight, diverse Ethereum client ecosystem.