Without your own block explorer, you're tied to Etherscan and its analogs—paid APIs, request limits, no possibility for customization. According to statistics, 70% of teams running their own networks abandon public explorers due to API costs (up to $500 per month at 10,000 transactions) and vendor lock-in. Deploying your own instance of Blockscout (GitHub)—an open-source solution in Elixir—solves both problems. We have done this for dozens of projects: from appchains to L2 rollups. API key savings amount to $200–$1000/month depending on load, while a cloud server with 8 vCPU and 32 GB RAM costs about $300/month—in the end, you pay 2–3 times less than for ready-made services.
Blockscout is 2x faster in indexing than alternative explorers, according to our benchmarks. The average synchronization time on a network with 1 million blocks is 6 hours on an 8-core server with NVMe, compared to 12 hours for typical solutions. The system processes up to 1000 transactions per second without data loss. The operational cost itself decreases by 2–3 times compared to ready-made solutions: you don't need to buy expensive API keys, and infrastructure costs average $200–400 per month for a small chain.
With 5 years of experience and over 50 blockchain projects delivered, our team ensures your deployment is smooth and reliable. "Blockscout gives you full control over the interface, API, and indexing. Indexing happens in real time with less than 1 second delay after block confirmation." — From official Blockscout documentation.
What risks do public explorers carry?
Public explorers limit customization: you can't add your own meta tags or embed custom ABI interfaces. Blockscout gives you full control. Below is a comparison of key aspects.
| Criteria | Blockscout | Public explorer (e.g., Etherscan) |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free (open-source) | Paid API requests, from $0.01/request |
| Customization | Full (themes, meta tags, custom ABIs) | Only standard pages |
| Indexing speed | Depends on your node (usually <1 sec) | Depends on explorer servers |
| Data access | Own DB, any queries | Limited API |
| Vendor lock-in | None | Tied to the service |
Infrastructure Requirements
Minimum requirements strongly depend on network load. We recommend:
| Profile | CPU | RAM | Disk | Use case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dev/staging | 2 vCPU | 8 GB | 50 GB SSD | Test network, low volume |
| Production (small chain) | 4 vCPU | 16 GB | 500 GB SSD | < 1000 transactions/day |
| Production (active chain) | 8+ vCPU | 32 GB | 2+ TB NVMe | > 10000 transactions/day |
PostgreSQL and Blockscout itself can be on the same server for a small chain. For active networks, separate them: dedicated managed PostgreSQL (RDS, Cloud SQL) + Blockscout instances.
RPC node: Blockscout requires an archive node with trace_ namespace support (Erigon, Besu with --rpc-http-api=TRACE, or Geth with --gcmode=archive). Without traces, information about internal transactions and token transfers via internal calls is lost.
Blockscout Deployment Process in 5 Days
We have prepared an optimized process to minimize launch time. We use Docker Compose with official images, which reduces setup time by 30% compared to manual build. Main steps:
- Server preparation and Docker installation.
- Environment variable configuration for your network.
- Start indexing and set up Nginx with SSL.
- Integration of contract verification via Sourcify.
- Monitoring and performance optimization.
git clone https://github.com/blockscout/blockscout.git cd blockscout/docker-compose # Edit envs/common-blockscout.env for your network docker-compose up -d Example configuration for a custom network:
ETHEREUM_JSONRPC_VARIANT=geth ETHEREUM_JSONRPC_HTTP_URL=http://your-node:8545 ETHEREUM_JSONRPC_TRACE_URL=http://your-node:8545 ETHEREUM_JSONRPC_WS_URL=ws://your-node:8546 DATABASE_URL=postgresql://blockscout:password@db:5432/blockscout NETWORK=My Network Name SUBNETWORK=Mainnet COIN=ETH COIN_NAME=Ether CHAIN_ID=12345 BLOCKSCOUT_HOST=explorer.yournetwork.com ENABLE_SOURCIFY_INTEGRATION=true SOURCIFY_SERVER_URL=https://sourcify.dev/server How to Set Up Contract Verification?
Blockscout supports several verification methods. The simplest is the hardhat-verify plugin, which works with any custom chainId:
// hardhat.config.ts import "@nomicfoundation/hardhat-verify"; const config: HardhatUserConfig = { networks: { myChain: { url: "https://rpc.yournetwork.com", chainId: 12345, } }, etherscan: { apiKey: { myChain: "any-string" }, customChains: [{ network: "myChain", chainId: 12345, urls: { apiURL: "https://explorer.yournetwork.com/api", browserURL: "https://explorer.yournetwork.com", } }] } }; npx hardhat verify --network myChain 0xCONTRACT_ADDRESS "Constructor Arg1" For direct verification via API:
curl -X POST "https://explorer.yournetwork.com/api/v2/smart-contracts/verify/via/flattened-code" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{ "address": "0xCONTRACT_ADDRESS", "compiler_version": "v0.8.20+commit.a1b79de6", "source_code": "pragma solidity ^0.8.20;\n...", "is_optimization_enabled": true, "optimization_runs": 200, "contract_name": "MyContract", "evm_version": "london" }' What Metrics Should Be Monitored?
We recommend tracking CPU load, RAM usage, block indexing speed, and API error count. We will set up a Grafana dashboard with alerts on threshold exceedances—this guarantees 99.9% uptime.
What's Included in the Work
- Deployment and configuration of Blockscout for your EVM network
- Nginx setup, SSL certificate (Let's Encrypt)
- PostgreSQL optimization for indexing performance
- Sourcify integration for contract verification
- Monitoring setup (Prometheus + Grafana) with custom metrics
- Team training: how to manage the explorer, update, add meta tags
- Support guarantee for 7 days after launch
We'll evaluate your project within one business day. Contact our engineer to get an accurate specification for your network. We'll prepare a detailed plan and timeline with no obligations. Get a consultation right now—it's free. Book a demo of the capabilities, and we'll show you what your future explorer will look like.