Solana Client Agave Hits 1.1 Million TPS in Synthetic Benchmark, Matching Firedancer
Solana client Agave has achieved a record-breaking 1.1 million transactions per second (TPS), matching Firedancer’s milestone and underscoring rising competition among Solana’s validator clients.
The achievement, disclosed by Solana core engineer Andrew Fitzgerald, came from a single-node synthetic benchmark that briefly peaked at 1.1 million TPS. Fitzgerald explained that the run included several performance changes not yet merged into mainline code, such as PoH recording and status-cache improvements alongside experimental “scheduler-bindings,” while block/shred limits were disabled.
“Hit a burst of 1.1m TPS on Agave this morning. Single-node synthetic test with simple transfers,” Fitzgerald wrote, before cautioning: “Disabled block/shred limits, and it’s a burst not sustained.”
Agave vs. Firedancer: Solana Client Competition Heats Up
The test instantly fueled debate within the Solana ecosystem. Last year, Jump Crypto’s Firedancer also hit 1.1 million TPS under similar synthetic conditions. Helius co-founder Mert Mumtaz noted that Solana Client Agave’s breakthrough proves Solana’s performance gains aren’t limited to Firedancer, writing:
“There is an outdated notion that Solana will become faster only if Firedancer… but Agave is now competitive. This rivalry will improve the chain like never before.”
Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko responded with his trademark humor, saying: “Pls no more. Just ship ag and lower the timers to 150ms.” His comment highlighted the community’s focus on SIMD-0326 “Alpenglow”, a proposed overhaul targeting 150 ms block finality by reworking validator voting.
Under the Hood: Agave’s New Performance Features
The 1.1M TPS burst reflects progress in Solana Client Agave’s performance roadmap. The “scheduler-bindings” extension will allow validators to experiment with custom block-packing logic without forking core software. Other upgrades include:
A next-gen TPU client (“tpu-client-next”)
AccountsDB input/output reductions
Greedy scheduler optimizations
Snapshot and gossip improvements
Together, these changes aim to reduce real-world overhead and improve latency, even if synthetic peaks don’t translate directly to mainnet performance.
What the 1.1M TPS Burst Means for Solana Users
It’s important to stress that synthetic single-node benchmarks measure raw execution throughput, not mainnet reality. Actual capacity is constrained by network propagation, signature verification, and economic policies. Still, Agave’s record aligns with broader progress: earlier this month, independent experiments observed six-figure TPS bursts on Solana mainnet during heavy program loads.
This highlights two key takeaways:
1. Client diversity is real. With Solana Client Agave (Anza) and Firedancer (Jump Crypto) trading blows, Solana gains resilience and performance benefits from multiple independent codebases.
2. Latency, not just TPS, is the new frontier. The 150 ms finality target, if adopted, could transform user experience for payments, trading, and real-time decentralized apps.
At press time, Solana (SOL) traded at $207.86, holding strong as the network continues to demonstrate why it remains one of the most advanced blockchains in terms of scalability and performance.
