Published in
2 min readMar 12, 2021
Covalent VS the Graph — which is better!?
I am taking part in the Covalent Alchemist program and decided to cover the main differences between Covalent vs The Graph. As far as I see it, the main differences are the following:
- Covalent has a straightforward REST API. I change the parameters in my REST call and it provides a different result. I don’t need to do anything fancy to obtain results — they can be obtained in the browser by modifying the REST call URL! Even non-geeks can do this.
- The Graph requires you to write a subgraph. If I am a new developer, I would need to learn the API of the subgraph, as well as learn how to interact with the Graph’s Postgres DB. Suppose I created a subgraph. I know need to convince Curators to vote my subgraph in. This is not a trivial task! And only then I can query the indexer nodes and get my data.
- The main difference, in my mind, is that Covalent queries the WHOLE CHAIN. Including arbitrary wallets. You cannot do this with the Graph. Therefore Covalent is strictly superior technology! :)
As an example, let us query a random wallet:
https://api.covalenthq.com/v1/1/address/0xfe83552aedabd966b2eba21a9b2cdaadf2dbbb2e/balances_v2/?
And we get the following response:
{
"data":{
"address":"0xfe83552aedabd966b2eba21a9b2cdaadf2dbbb2e",
"updated_at":"2021-03-12T19:25:10.226791644Z",
"next_update_at":"2021-03-12T19:30:10.226792331Z",
"quote_currency":"USD",
"chain_id":1,
"items":[
{
"contract_decimals":18,
"contract_name":"Ether",
"contract_ticker_symbol":"ETH",
"contract_address":"0xeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee",
"supports_erc":null,
"logo_url":"https://logos.covalenthq.com/tokens/0xeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.png",
"type":"cryptocurrency",
"balance":"11703922070187167680",
"quote_rate":1836.419,
"quote":21493.305,
"nft_data":null
},
{
"contract_decimals":8,
"contract_name":"0xBitcoin Token",
"contract_ticker_symbol":"0xBTC",
"contract_address":"0xb6ed7644c69416d67b522e20bc294a9a9b405b31",
"supports_erc":[
"erc20"
],
"logo_url":"https://logos.covalenthq.com/tokens/0xb6ed7644c69416d67b522e20bc294a9a9b405b31.png",
"type":"cryptocurrency",
"balance":"578363571",
"quote_rate":0.32720846,
"quote":1.8924545,
"nft_data":null
}
],
"pagination":null
},
"error":false,
"error_message":null,
"error_code":null
}
All of a sudden, we can see the ether balance as well as the token balances.
I dare you to find an API for The Graph that can do the same thing!
:)