Blockchain · head-to-head
Covalent vs Helium
Covalent's blockchain-data platform rebranded to GoldRush, unifying wallet balances, transaction history, NFT ownership, and token/DEX pricing across 100+ EVM and non-EVM chains behind one API, plus JSON-RPC endpoints for 30+ EVM networks. New accounts get a 14-day trial (25,000 credits) before moving to a paid plan or per-request (x402) billing with no monthly minimum. All data comes back as JSON.
Helium's original Layer-1 blockchain was retired in an April 2023 migration to Solana, and the network's chain data now ships only as bulk Postgres/CSV snapshots over torrent or a requestor-pays S3 bucket rather than a queryable API. The one remaining live HTTP endpoint is the free Entity API, which returns a Hotspot's owner, asserted (H3-obfuscated) location, and on-chain asset IDs by wallet public key. It carries no uptime guarantee and is meant for light lookups, not production traffic.
| Covalent | Helium | |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | API Key | None |
| Pricing | freemium | free |
| Formats | JSON | JSON |
| CORS | yes | yes |
| HTTPS | Yes | Yes |
Helium needs no API key, while Covalent requires API Key — pick Helium to start without signup.