The Graph vs Bitquery – Solving Blockchain Data Problems

Blockchains are “Mirror of Erised.” You will always find your interests in them.

Economists see blockchains as economies. Technologists see blockchains as platforms to build decentralized applications. Entrepreneurs see them as a new way to monetize their products, and law enforcement agencies look for criminal activity in them.

Everyone looks at blockchains their own way. However, without easy and reliable access to what is recorded on chain, everyone is blind.

Blockchain data problem

Blockchains emit millions of transactions and events every day. To analyze blockchains for useful information, you need to extract, store, and index those records and then provide an efficient way to access them. This creates two main problems:

• Infrastructure cost: Before developing an application, you need a reliable feed from the chain. For this, you need to invest in infrastructure, which is costly and a barrier for developers and startups.
• Actionable context: To get value from raw transactions, you need to add context. For example, is a transaction a standard transfer or a DEX trade? Is it a normal DEX trade or an arbitrage? Records with that context help businesses solve real-world problems.

This article looks at the similarities and differences between The Graph and Bitquery.

The Graph Overview

The Graph is a decentralized indexing protocol. Anyone can create a GraphQL schema (a Subgraph) and define APIs for the contracts they care about. Indexers on The Graph Network use that schema to extract and index the events, and you read the result through GraphQL APIs. The hosted service The Graph started with was sunset in June 2024; today all subgraphs run on the decentralized network, which supports Ethereum and many other chains.

Problem Addressed by The Graph

Developers building decentralized applications (dapps) would otherwise depend on centralized servers to process and index their smart contract events, for example to create APIs for third-party services or to show dapp users more. That creates a single point of failure.

The Graph addresses this by creating a decentralized network for reading indexed smart contract state, removing the need for centralized servers.

Bitquery Overview

Bitquery builds a blockchain data engine that gives simple access to many chains at once. Using Bitquery's GraphQL APIs, you can query more than 40 chains from one unified schema, and take the same records as real-time streams over WebSocket, Kafka, and gRPC.

Problem Addressed by Bitquery

Developers, analysts, and businesses all read blockchains for different reasons: analyzing networks, building applications, investigating crimes. Bitquery provides unified APIs across chains for sectors such as compliance, trading, analytics, and wallets.

The unified schema lets developers scale to multiple blockchains quickly and read several chains through a single API.

Common Things

GraphQL

Both The Graph and Bitquery use GraphQL extensively, giving end users the freedom to ask for exactly the fields they need. Read here why GraphQL is better than REST APIs for this kind of work.

Removing Infrastructure Cost

Both projects remove infrastructure costs for end users and provide a model where you pay only for what you use.

The Graph Architecture

The Graph runs on a network of Indexers, Curators, and Delegators.

Indexers run Graph nodes that store and index each subgraph. Curators signal which subgraphs are worth indexing, and Delegators stake GRT with Indexers.

The Graph aims to be a decentralized indexing and query layer for web3.

Bitquery Architecture

Bitquery prioritizes performance and developer experience over decentralization. Bitquery's infrastructure indexes 40+ blockchains into a single unified schema and serves the same records through GraphQL APIs, WebSocket subscriptions, Kafka and gRPC streams, cloud datashares, and an MCP server for AI agents.

Differences between The Graph and Bitquery

There are considerable differences between The Graph and Bitquery. The significant ones follow.

Blockchain Support

The Graph's decentralized network supports Ethereum and a growing set of other chains through subgraphs. Bitquery supports more than 40 blockchains out of the box and lets you query any of them with the same GraphQL schema, without writing or deploying anything.

API Support

The Graph lets you create your own GraphQL schema (Subgraph) and have Indexers serve it. Defining your own schema means you can shape APIs around your own contract.

Bitquery follows the unified schema model: the same GraphQL schema works across every supported blockchain, covering transfers, trades, balances, events, calls, and more. You query what is already indexed instead of defining and deploying an index first.

Ease of Use

With Bitquery, you only need to learn GraphQL and use the schema in the IDE to query any supported chain. With The Graph, if what you need isn't available in a community subgraph, you also need to write and deploy your own subgraph, which requires coding.

Real-time Data

Bitquery provides GraphQL subscriptions over WebSocket and Kafka streams for production pipelines that need every block with low latency. The Graph is primarily a query layer over indexed historical state; real-time push delivery is not its core model.

Decentralization

The Graph is a decentralized network of nodes that index and curate what is on chain. We think The Graph's mission to decentralize that access is a novel goal, and we appreciate it. Bitquery focuses instead on fast multi-blockchain access at scale, coupled with useful query tooling.

Performance

Bitquery's technology stack is optimized for performance and reliability. A centralized architecture helps optimize latency and response rates.

The Graph's decentralized approach makes it resilient, and its speed depends on the Indexers serving your subgraph.

Open Source

The Graph is a fully open source project. Developers can verify the codebase, fork it, or integrate it according to their needs.

Bitquery publishes tooling and examples on GitHub. The core indexing backend is closed source.

Data Verifiability

Almost everything recorded on a blockchain is financial, so verifiability matters. The Graph relies on its network's economic incentives and Curators for quality. Bitquery is a single provider and answers for the accuracy of what it serves.

Pricing

The Graph's pricing runs through GRT, its network token: consumers pay query fees that flow to Indexers.

Bitquery has public pricing at bitquery.io/pricing, starting at $29/mo billed annually, with a 7-day free trial that requires no card. Plans scale up through streams and archive history to enterprise Kafka delivery.

Conclusion

Blockchains are full of information waiting for analysts to find it. We respect The Graph's aim to decentralize access for application builders. Bitquery chose a different path: pre-indexed records from many chains, served through APIs, streams, and interfaces for AI agents.

The two projects address different needs in the same market, with some clear intersections. If you want to define custom indexes for your own contracts on a decentralized network, The Graph fits. If you want ready-made, unified coverage of 40+ chains with real-time delivery, Bitquery fits.

Let us know what similarities and differences you see between The Graph and Bitquery.

You might also be interested in:

• DEX Data APIs: Uniswap trades, prices and OHLC in one query
• How to get newly created Ethereum Tokens?
• How to investigate an Ethereum address?
• API to get Ethereum Smart Contract Events
• Simple APIs to get Latest Uniswap Pair Listing

About Bitquery

Bitquery provides blockchain data for 40+ chains through one unified schema. Our products include:

• GraphQL APIs and streams: query historical data or subscribe to real-time updates via WebSocket from the IDE and docs.

• Kafka and gRPC streams: complete, low-latency onchain feeds for trading systems and pipelines.

• MCP server: connect Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client to Bitquery and ask in plain English.

If you have any questions about our products, ask them on our Telegram channel. Also, subscribe to our newsletter below, we will keep you updated with the latest in the cryptocurrency world.

Updated on 2 October 2026 by the Bitquery team: the yearly price was checked against Bitquery's billing catalogue and the date The Graph closed its hosted service against The Graph's own announcement. Four claims we could not confirm were removed, and AI tools helped redraft the text.