Solidity excels at developer adoption and ecosystem maturity because it was the first language designed for the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Its massive network effect is evident in its $50B+ Total Value Locked (TVL) across chains like Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Polygon, and a vast library of battle-tested tools like Hardhat, Foundry, and OpenZeppelin. This makes it the de facto standard for DeFi protocols and NFT marketplaces seeking immediate liquidity and developer talent.
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Comparisons
Solidity vs Move: Contract Languages
A technical comparison for CTOs and architects on the core trade-offs between the EVM's Solidity and the resource-centric Move language, covering security models, developer experience, and ecosystem lock-in.
Chainscore © 2026
introduction
THE ANALYSIS
Introduction
A foundational comparison of Solidity and Move, the dominant smart contract languages shaping Ethereum and Aptos/Sui ecosystems.
Move takes a fundamentally different approach by prioritizing safety and asset semantics. Its core innovation is treating digital assets as first-class citizens with built-in scarcity and ownership rules, enforced at the language level. This results in a trade-off: while Move's borrow checker prevents reentrancy and double-spend bugs common in Solidity, its ecosystem is younger, with fewer production-ready frameworks and a smaller pool of experienced developers compared to the EVM's established tooling.
The key trade-off: If your priority is ecosystem size, developer availability, and interoperability across a multi-chain landscape, choose Solidity. If you prioritize security-by-design, formal verification, and building novel asset-centric applications on high-throughput chains like Aptos or Sui, choose Move. The decision hinges on whether you value the proven network or a more robust foundational model.
tldr-summary
Solidity vs Move: Contract Languages
TL;DR: Core Differentiators
Key strengths and trade-offs at a glance for CTOs and architects choosing a foundational language.
01
Solidity: Unmatched Ecosystem
Dominant market share: Powers 90%+ of DeFi's $50B+ TVL on Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Polygon. This matters for protocols requiring deep liquidity and composability with established standards like ERC-20, ERC-721, and DeFi blueprints (Uniswap, Aave). The developer pool is vast, with 4,000+ monthly active GitHub contributors and a mature toolchain (Hardhat, Foundry, OpenZeppelin).
90%+
DeFi TVL Share
4,000+
Monthly Devs
02
Solidity: Rapid Iteration & Flexibility
Turing-complete with low entry barrier: Enables rapid prototyping and complex logic, crucial for innovative DeFi primitives and NFT projects. While this flexibility can introduce vulnerabilities, mature auditing firms and tools (Slither, MythX) are specialized in Solidity. The language's evolution (via EIPs) is community-driven, allowing it to adapt (e.g., via ERC-4337 for account abstraction).
03
Move: Asset-Centric Security
Built-in resource safety: Move treats digital assets as linear types that cannot be copied or double-spent at the VM level. This matters for financial applications where asset integrity is non-negotiable, such as native stablecoins (like Aptos's and Sui's USDC) and high-value NFTs. It eliminates entire classes of vulnerabilities (e.g., reentrancy) common in Solidity.
0
Native Reentrancy Bugs
04
Move: Parallel Execution Ready
Designed for parallelization: Move's data model (emphasizing ownership) allows blockchains like Sui and Aptos to execute non-conflicting transactions in parallel, achieving 100k+ TPS in theory. This matters for mass-market applications (gaming, social, high-frequency DEXs) requiring horizontal scalability. The language enforces clear data ownership, making parallelization safe by construction.
100k+
Theoretical TPS
05
Choose Solidity If...
You are building on EVM chains (Ethereum L2s, Polygon, Avalanche C-Chain) and need:
- Maximum composability with existing DeFi protocols.
- A deep talent pool and battle-tested tools (Hardhat, Ethers.js).
- To prioritize time-to-market and ecosystem fit over novel language features.
Ideal for: DeFi forks, NFT marketplaces, and protocols where network effects are critical.
06
Choose Move If...
You are targeting Aptos, Sui, or a novel high-throughput chain and need:
- Bank-grade security guarantees for digital assets by default.
- To build applications that inherently benefit from parallel execution (e.g., gaming assets, order-book DEXs).
- To future-proof for scalability beyond sequential EVM execution.
Ideal for: Financial infrastructure, asset-heavy applications, and projects where correctness is the primary feature.
HEAD-TO-HEAD COMPARISON
Feature Matrix: Solidity vs Move
Direct comparison of key programming language features for smart contract development.
| Feature / Metric | Solidity (EVM) | Move (Aptos/Sui) |
|---|---|---|
Primary Security Model | Explicit Checks & Audits | Resource-Oriented Types |
Asset Double-Spend Protection | ||
Formal Verification Support | Limited (via 3rd party) | Native (Move Prover) |
Mainnet Deployments | Ethereum, Avalanche, Polygon | Aptos, Sui |
Active Developer Pool | ~20,000+ | ~5,000+ |
Standard Token Interface | ERC-20, ERC-721 | Aptos Coin, Sui Object |
Inheritance Model | Single & Multiple | Modules (No Inheritance) |
pros-cons-a
PROS AND CONS
Solidity vs Move: Contract Languages
Key strengths and trade-offs at a glance for the two dominant smart contract languages.
01
Solidity: Dominant Ecosystem
Massive developer adoption: Powers 95%+ of the EVM ecosystem, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Polygon. This translates to:
- 4,000+ active GitHub repos.
- Unmatched tooling (Hardhat, Foundry, OpenZeppelin).
- Deepest talent pool for hiring.
This matters for teams prioritizing speed to market and access to existing libraries.
95%+
EVM Market Share
02
Solidity: Inherent Flexibility
Unrestricted state management allows for complex, custom logic patterns seen in DeFi giants like Uniswap and Aave. This enables:
- Arbitrary contract interactions and composability.
- Innovative financial primitives (flash loans, yield vaults).
- Gas optimization through low-level assembly (
assembly {}).
This matters for building novel, highly composable DeFi protocols.
03
Solidity: Security Footgun
Permissive by default leads to common vulnerabilities. Over $2B+ was lost to reentrancy, integer overflows, and access control bugs in 2023 alone.
- Requires manual safeguards for every state change.
- No native resource accounting (e.g., automatic asset tracking).
This matters for teams without extensive security auditing resources.
$2B+
2023 Exploit Losses (EVM)
04
Move: Built-in Safety
Resource-oriented programming with linear types prevents entire classes of bugs. Key features:
- Explicit resource ownership prevents double-spending by design.
- Formal verification friendliness (Move Prover on Aptos/Sui).
- No dangling references or implicit type conversions.
This matters for asset-heavy applications like exchanges and gaming where correctness is paramount.
05
Move: On-Chain Governance & Upgradability
First-class upgrade modules (e.g., Aptos Framework) allow for seamless, permissioned contract evolution.
- Standardized package manager (Move Package Manager).
- Explicit dependency management prevents "dependency hell".
This matters for long-lived protocols like L1 blockchains (Aptos, Sui) and enterprise applications requiring controlled evolution.
06
Move: Immature Tooling & Fragmentation
Ecosystem is nascent and fragmented. Key challenges:
- Two major, incompatible dialects (Aptos Move vs. Sui Move).
- Sparse production tooling compared to EVM (limited debuggers, testing frameworks).
- Smaller talent pool, increasing development time and cost.
This matters for teams needing battle-tested infrastructure and a large hiring pipeline.
pros-cons-b
PROS AND CONS
Move vs. Solidity: Contract Languages
A data-driven comparison of the dominant EVM language versus the resource-oriented challenger. Choose based on your protocol's security model and asset logic.
01
Move: Formal Security
Resource-oriented model: Assets are non-copyable, non-droppable types, eliminating double-spend and reentrancy bugs by design. This matters for DeFi protocols handling high-value assets like Aave on Aptos or Liquidswap on Sui.
0
Major Reentrancy Hacks
02
Move: Predictable Gas
Bytecode verification & static analysis: Gas costs are tied to computational steps verified at publish time, not runtime storage state. This matters for high-frequency trading apps and gaming economies requiring stable, predictable transaction fees.
03
Solidity: Ecosystem Maturity
Massive developer tooling: 4,000+ active GitHub repos, frameworks like Foundry and Hardhat, and auditors like OpenZeppelin. This matters for teams needing rapid iteration and access to battle-tested libraries (ERC-20, ERC-721).
$50B+
Total Value Locked (EVM)
04
Solidity: Cross-Chain Portability
EVM-native standard: Deploy the same contract to Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, and 50+ L2s with minimal changes. This matters for protocols pursuing multi-chain expansion or leveraging existing liquidity on Layer 2 networks.
05
Move: Steeper Learning Curve
Paradigm shift required: Developers must unlearn mutable global state patterns. Limited production-grade examples outside Aptos/Sui core ecosystems. This is a con for teams on tight deadlines or those reliant on Solidity's vast community knowledge base.
06
Solidity: Manual Security Overhead
Audit-dependent safety: Requires rigorous manual checks and expensive audits to prevent vulnerabilities like integer overflow (pre-0.8.x) and delegatecall exploits. This is a con for new teams with limited security budget, as seen in hacks affecting Euler Finance and BonqDAO.
$3B+
Value Lost to Exploits (2023)
CHOOSE YOUR PRIORITY
Decision Guide: When to Choose Which
Solidity for DeFi
Verdict: The incumbent standard for composability and liquidity. Strengths: Unmatched ecosystem of battle-tested, audited contracts (Uniswap V3, Aave, Compound). Deep integration with tooling (Hardhat, Foundry, OpenZeppelin). Dominant TVL and developer mindshare ensure easy hiring and protocol integration. The EVM's dominance makes cross-chain deployment via Layer 2s (Arbitrum, Optimism) and EVM-compatible chains (Polygon, Avalanche C-Chain) straightforward.
Move for DeFi
Verdict: A superior choice for novel, high-security financial primitives. Strengths: The resource-oriented model prevents accidental loss of assets—a critical advantage for complex DeFi. Formal verification is built into the language (Move Prover), enabling mathematically proven security for core logic. On Aptos and Sui, parallel execution enables massive scalability for order book DEXs (e.g., Econia on Aptos). However, the ecosystem is nascent, with fewer established blue-chip protocols and a smaller pool of experienced developers.
CONTRACT LANGUAGES
Technical Deep Dive: Paradigm Differences
Choosing a smart contract language is a foundational architectural decision. This comparison breaks down the core technical and philosophical differences between Solidity, the incumbent standard for EVM chains, and Move, the resource-oriented language powering Aptos and Sui.
Move's design inherently prevents entire classes of vulnerabilities common in Solidity. Its core innovation is treating digital assets as typed resources that cannot be duplicated or implicitly discarded, eliminating reentrancy and overflow bugs at the language level. Solidity, while mature with extensive auditing tools like Slither and Foundry, relies on developer discipline and external tooling to catch these issues. For asset-heavy protocols, Move provides stronger guarantees by construction.
verdict
THE ANALYSIS
Final Verdict and Decision Framework
A data-driven breakdown to guide your choice between the EVM's established champion and the next-generation challenger.
Solidity excels at developer accessibility and ecosystem depth because of its first-mover advantage and seamless integration with the dominant Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). For example, its tooling—Hardhat, Foundry, OpenZeppelin libraries—and massive community have enabled over $50B in DeFi TVL and a vast job market. Its deterministic gas model allows for precise cost estimation, a critical feature for budget-conscious deployments on networks like Arbitrum and Base.
Move takes a fundamentally different approach by prioritizing security and asset-centric programming through its resource model and bytecode verifier. This results in a trade-off: a steeper initial learning curve for a more robust safety guarantee. Protocols like Aptos and Sui leverage Move's parallel execution to achieve 100K+ TPS in controlled environments, and its built-in prevention of double-spend and reentrancy bugs has made it the foundation for major stablecoin projects like Aave's GHO on its native chain.
The key architectural divergence: Solidity's flexibility empowers rapid prototyping and integration within the vast EVM multichain landscape, while Move's constraints are designed to enforce correctness for high-value, security-critical applications from the start.
Consider Solidity if your priority is: launching quickly into the largest market (EVM L1/L2s), leveraging existing audits and talent, or building complex, composable DeFi protocols where ecosystem liquidity is paramount. The path is well-trodden, with predictable costs and risks.
Choose Move when your priority is: building novel financial primitives where asset safety is non-negotiable, requiring maximal throughput via parallel execution (e.g., gaming, high-frequency DEXs), or establishing a new chain (L1) with security as a core differentiator. You are betting on next-generation architecture over immediate network effects.
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