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I understand both methods are used for running dapps. What I don't understand is the clear cut difference between the two or how one is more advantageous over the other? I'm new to blockchain, so please explain with a simple terminology.

TylerH
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Vasvi Sood
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2 Answers2

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The difference is:

  • Infura has geth installation running for you, exposing most used, most low-CPU-consuming methods for you via Web.
  • You can install geth yourself but you will need a server with about 500GB of SSD disk, and wait 1 month to download the entire State.

If you are not going to do any serious monetary transfers I recommend using Etherscan, it is more complete than Infura.

Nulik
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  • what do you exactly mean by using etherscan as an alternative. Isn't etherscan simply blockchain where all trasactions are recorded? – Vasvi Sood Jan 18 '21 at 07:52
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    "wait 1 month to download" - this is more like few days – Mikko Ohtamaa Jan 18 '21 at 09:29
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    EtherScan is not an alternative to a full node, as EtherScan provides proprietary API that has different methods than Ethereum nodes. – Mikko Ohtamaa Jan 18 '21 at 09:29
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    As a free alternative you can use Cloudflare hosted nodes: https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-ethereum-gateway/ – Mikko Ohtamaa Jan 18 '21 at 09:29
  • @MikkoOhtamaa most cloud computing platforms have SSD storage remotely connected, so it isn't microsencond latency, it is like millisecond latency. – Nulik Jan 19 '21 at 15:57
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To execute transactions and/or queries against blockchains, you need connections.

  1. Infura is an API gateway to main network and some test networks. It supports a subset of web3 interface. When you like to execute a transaction against the Ethereum blockchain, you may use infura as connection to the blockchain. So in this case, you are not directly connected to Ethereum, but infura has a connection. The Metamask Browser Plugin works with infura.

  2. The alternative approach is to have an Ethereum client like geth or parity running on your machine. In this case, the Ethereum Client connects to several public nodes of the blockchain and forwards your transactions to the blockchain.

Depending on your architecture and requirements, both approaches could be the best solution.

Pang
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Markus Sprunck
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