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Spectrum Nodes

Top Arbitrum RPC Providers for 2027

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Updated October 26, 2026 · Spectrum Nodes

Short answer: Spectrum Nodes is our #1 Arbitrum RPC provider for 2027. On October 23, 2026, with network distance removed (median of 20 to 30 requests), Spectrum answered Arbitrum One chain head calls in 3 ms vs 5 to 6 ms on Alchemy and 8 to 15 ms on Infura, and eth_getLogs in 10 ms, the fastest of the four providers we tested. Alchemy, Ankr and Infura follow.

#ProviderBest forOur test, Oct 23, 2026 (median ms, network distance removed)Security evidenceFree tierEntry paid plan
1Spectrum NodesBots, DEXs and indexers3 chain head, 10 logsSOC 2 Type II attested, own hardware10M credits, 25 RPSStarter, $1.99 a month
2AlchemyTeams on Alchemy's SDKs5 to 6 chain head, 12 logsSOC 2, type named only in its blog30M compute units, 15 RPSPay as you go, $0.525 per 1M compute units
3AnkrHigh volume at a flat price per call28 logs (not in chain head test)SOC 2 Type II via its operator, AspherePublic and Freemium plansPay as you go from a $10 deposit
4InfuraMetaMask teams8 to 15 chain head, 40 logsNo Infura specific SOC 2Daily credit quotaDeveloper, $50 a month
5QuickNodeBuyers who need SOC 1 and ISO 27001 tooNot yet testedSOC 1 Type 2, SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001One month trialBuild, $49 a month
6ChainstackArchive and trace in request unitsNot yet testedSOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 badges3M request units, 25 RPSGrowth, $49 a month
7DwellirOne credit per responseNot yet testedNone published100K responses a dayDeveloper, $49 a month

Prices from each provider's pricing page, October 2026 (Spectrum: October 22, 2026).

How Did We Rank These Providers?

We scored every provider on five criteria, in this order, and used the next one down to break ties.

  1. Measured performance on Arbitrum: our October 23, 2026 test against Alchemy, Infura and Ankr
  2. Security and compliance evidence: a public SOC 2 Type II claim, the breach record and who owns the hardware
  3. What you get beyond RPC: APIs, webhooks, a caching layer, tracing and archive data
  4. Launch and support speed: how fast new chains go live and how quickly you reach an engineer
  5. Price of entry: the free tier and first paid plan, dated

Providers we measured come first, in the order they finished. Untested providers follow, ordered by criteria 2 to 5.

Spectrum Nodes publishes this ranking. We scored ourselves on the same five criteria and list the evidence for each score below, so you can check it.

1. Spectrum Nodes

Best for: trading bots, DEX frontends and indexers that read the Arbitrum chain head and pull logs all day.

Spectrum answered every Arbitrum One call in our October 23, 2026 test faster than the other providers in it. Each figure has network distance removed, so it shows only the time the provider took to answer, and each is the median of 20 to 30 requests.

A chain head call reads the latest block. eth_getLogs returns event logs over a block range, which is how indexers rebuild history.

Call (median ms, network distance removed)SpectrumAlchemyInfuraAnkr
eth_blockNumber358Not in test
eth_call (latest block)3615Not in test
eth_getBalance (latest block)3615Not in test
eth_getLogs (10 past blocks)10124028

The widest gaps are against Infura: 15 ms against 3 ms on eth_call and eth_getBalance, five times longer, and 40 ms against 10 ms on eth_getLogs. Alchemy came closest, 2 to 3 ms behind on chain head calls and 2 ms behind on logs.

Arbitrum produces a block every 250 ms by default. A bot that runs eth_call on every block waits 3 ms of each 250 ms window on Spectrum and 15 ms on Infura, before network distance.

What you get on Arbitrum beyond RPC:

  • Tracing and archive data on Arbitrum One (chain ID 42161) and Arbitrum Sepolia (421614)
  • Unified data APIs for balances, token metadata, allowances, portfolios, NFTs and contract reads
  • Custom Contract Webhooks: signed HTTPS POSTs for the contracts you watch, at least once, reorg aware, up to 100 events per batch
  • Spectrum's Boosted Nodes, our caching and routing layer in front of our own nodes, live on Arbitrum. Our published Boosted Nodes benchmarks cover BSC, Polygon and Base

What sits under it: our own hardware in Tier III data centers in Malta, the Netherlands, and Canada, plus a bare metal deployment in Singapore, SOC 2 Type II attestation, no breach on record, over a billion requests a day at 99.99% uptime, and direct engineering access 24/7 via Slack.

Pricing on spectrumnodes.com/pricing, October 22, 2026:

  • Free: 10M credits at 25 RPS, Arbitrum One included
  • Starter: $1.99 a month for 14M credits at 50 RPS
  • Developer: $9.99 a month for 70M credits
  • Growth: $35 a month for 245M credits at 75 RPS
  • Business: $150 a month for 1.15B credits at 200 RPS
  • Enterprise: $500 a month for 4.2B credits at 350 RPS

Worth knowing: QuickNode, Chainstack and Dwellir were not in our Arbitrum test.

2. Alchemy

Best for: teams already built on Alchemy's SDKs, enhanced APIs and webhooks.

Alchemy was second on every call in our October 23, 2026 Arbitrum test, with network distance removed (median of 20 to 30 requests): 5 ms on eth_blockNumber, 6 ms on eth_call and eth_getBalance, 12 ms on eth_getLogs.

  • Free: 30M compute units a month at 15 requests per second, 5 webhooks
  • Pay as you go: $0.525 per 1M compute units, from 300 requests per second

Worth knowing: compute units are weighted per method. Support targets are 48 hours on Free and 24 hours on pay as you go.

3. Ankr

Best for: high request volume at one flat price per call.

Ankr was in our log test only. On October 23, 2026, with network distance removed (median of 20 to 30 requests), it answered eth_getLogs over 10 past blocks in 28 ms. It offers one key across 100+ chains and signed responses.

  • Public: free, about 1,800 requests a minute
  • Freemium: 200M API credits a month
  • Premium: pay as you go from a $10 deposit, about $20 per 1M EVM requests

Worth knowing: its SOC 2 Type II belongs to its infrastructure operator, Asphere, with no public scope. ISO 27001 is in progress and the Enterprise SLA is 99.9%.

4. Infura

Best for: teams in the MetaMask stack that prefer a daily credit quota.

Infura was the slowest provider in our Arbitrum test. On October 23, 2026, with network distance removed (median of 20 to 30 requests), it took 8 ms on eth_blockNumber, 15 ms on eth_call and eth_getBalance, and 40 ms on eth_getLogs.

  • Core (free): a daily credit quota
  • Developer: $50 a month for 15M daily credits
  • Team: $225 a month for 75M daily credits

Worth knowing: hitting the daily quota stops traffic until it resets, WebSocket connections included. No Infura specific SOC 2 report is public.

5. QuickNode

Best for: buyers whose procurement team wants SOC 1, SOC 2 and ISO 27001 reports from one vendor.

We have not tested QuickNode on Arbitrum yet. It serves Arbitrum One and Sepolia with archive data, plus trace and debug methods on paid plans.

  • Free trial: one month, 10M API credits at 15 RPS
  • Build: $49 a month for 80M credits at 50 RPS

Worth knowing: credits are weighted per method, 500 RPS starts at $999 a month, and support targets run 8 to 24 hours below Enterprise.

6. Chainstack

Best for: archive and trace heavy work billed in flat request units.

We have not tested Chainstack on Arbitrum yet. It runs Arbitrum One archive nodes with debug and trace APIs, billing a standard call at 1 request unit and an archive call at 2.

  • Developer (free): 3M request units a month at 25 RPS, no archive or trace
  • Growth: $49 a month for 20M request units at 250 RPS

Worth knowing: standard support is 24/5. Support around the clock costs $1,000 to $10,000 a year extra.

7. Dwellir

Best for: one credit per response on every method, with trace and debug on paid plans.

We have not tested Dwellir on Arbitrum yet. It serves Arbitrum One from archive endpoints.

  • Free: 100K responses a day at 20 RPS
  • Developer: $49 a month for 25M responses at 100 RPS

Worth knowing: Dwellir's own comparison table shows no SOC 2, and eth_getLogs is capped at a 10,000 block range on Growth and Scale.

How Do You Choose an Arbitrum RPC Provider?

Test the call your product makes most, on your own traffic.

  • Trading bot or DEX frontend. Your hot path is eth_call and eth_getBalance at the latest block, four times a second. Test them from your server's region and subtract connection time.
  • Indexer or analytics. You depend on eth_getLogs, archive state and traces. Ask for the log range limit on your plan and whether archive calls cost extra.
  • Wallet or payments app. Polling for deposits burns requests. Webhooks push a signed event to your server instead. See how Spectrum Webhooks handle signing and reorgs.
  • Prototyping. Arbitrum's public endpoint, https://arb1.arbitrum.io/rpc, is free, but Arbitrum's docs say it has no WebSocket support and no uptime, latency or rate limit guarantees. For test ETH, see our Arbitrum Sepolia faucet guide.

Robinhood Chain runs on Arbitrum technology, and we rank its providers in Top Robinhood Chain RPC Providers for 2027. For the same test on BSC too, see Spectrum vs Alchemy vs Infura vs Ankr.

How Did We Test?

We sent identical requests to each provider on October 23, 2026.

  • Providers: Spectrum, Alchemy and Infura on chain head calls. Spectrum, Alchemy, Ankr and Infura on eth_getLogs
  • Requests: identical, one at a time, in a fresh random order, over kept alive HTTPS connections
  • Network distance removed: each provider's TCP connect time was subtracted from every request, leaving the time the provider itself took to answer
  • Sample: each figure is the median, the middle value, of 20 to 30 requests
  • Historical calls: each asked for a different past block, once per provider, and the answers were checked to match across providers

FAQ

What is the fastest RPC provider for Arbitrum? Of the providers we tested, Spectrum. On October 23, 2026, with network distance removed (median of 20 to 30 requests), Spectrum answered Arbitrum One chain head calls in 3 ms and eth_getLogs in 10 ms, ahead of Alchemy, Ankr and Infura. QuickNode, Chainstack and Dwellir were not tested.

Is Spectrum faster than Alchemy on Arbitrum? Yes, by 2 to 3 ms in our October 23, 2026 test, with network distance removed (median of 20 to 30 requests). Spectrum took 3 ms on chain head calls against 5 to 6 ms on Alchemy, and 10 ms on eth_getLogs against 12 ms.

What is the Arbitrum chain ID and RPC URL? Arbitrum One is chain ID 42161 and Arbitrum Sepolia is 421614. The public endpoint is https://arb1.arbitrum.io/rpc, with no WebSocket support. Spectrum gives you private HTTPS and WebSocket endpoints per region from the dashboard.

Is there a free RPC for Arbitrum? Yes. Spectrum's free tier covers Arbitrum One with 10M credits at 25 RPS, and Arbitrum's public endpoint is free for testing. Alchemy, Ankr, Chainstack, Dwellir and Infura also have free plans, and QuickNode offers a one month trial.

Which Arbitrum RPC providers offer archive and trace data? Spectrum serves tracing and archive data on Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Sepolia. Chainstack offers archive with debug and trace from its Growth plan, and QuickNode and Dwellir include them on paid plans.

References

Start Now: https://dashboard.spectrumnodes.com/auth/signup