Ethereum Test network
Published in
3 min readMay 14, 2018
Ethereum has three test network for developer to develop and to do testing, namely ROPSTEN, KOVAN and RINKEBY.
Ropsten
- PoW testnet
- Network id:
3
- Block time:
sub-30 seconds
- Commands:
geth --testnet
orgeth --networkid 3
parity --chain ropsten
- Explorer https://ropsten.etherscan.io/
- Github https://github.com/ethereum/ropsten
History:
- Started in November 2016. Named after a subway station in Stockholm.
- Was DoS attacked in February 2017 which made synching slow and made clients consume a lot of disk space.
- Was revived in March 2017 and became usable again.
Pros:
- Best reproduces the current production environment, i.e. system and network conditions on the live Ethereum mainnet, because it’s PoW net.
- Can be used with both geth and parity.
- Ether can be mined. Or requested from a faucet:
- https://faucet.metamask.io/
- http://faucet.ropsten.be:3001
- https://faucet.bitfwd.xyz/
- What public test-networks and faucets exist?
Cons:
- Not immune to spam attacks. Because of this it’s less stable.
Kovan
- PoA testnet started by the Parity team
- Network id:
42
- Block time:
4 seconds
- Command:
parity --chain kovan
- Explorer https://kovan.etherscan.io/
- Github https://github.com/kovan-testnet/proposal
History:
- Started in March 2017. Named after a subway station in Singapore.
Pros:
- Immune to spam attacks (as Ether supply is controlled by trusted parties)
Cons:
- Not supported in geth.
- Doesn’t fully reproduce the current production environment as it uses PoA.
- Ether can’t be mined. It has to be requested from the faucet.
Rinkeby
- PoA testnet started by the Ethereum team. Uses Clique PoA consensus protocol.
- Network id:
4
- Block time:
15 seconds
- Command:
geth --rinkeby
orgeth --networkid 4
- Explorer https://rinkeby.etherscan.io/
- Github https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/225
- Website https://www.rinkeby.io
History:
- Started in April 2017. Named after a metro station in Stockholm.
Pros:
- Immune to spam attacks (as Ether supply is controlled by trusted parties)
Cons:
- Supported by geth only
- Doesn’t fully reproduce the current production environment as it uses PoA.
- Ether can’t be mined. It has to be requested from a faucet:
- https://faucet.rinkeby.io/
Görli
Work on the testnet began at the ETHBerlin hackathon in early September, when Parity’s Afri Scohedon banded together with Chainsafe Systems in a bid to create a “next-generation public Ethereum test network”.
- PoA testnet
- Explorer https://goerli.etherscan.io/
- Github https://github.com/goerli/testnet
- Website https://www.rinkeby.io
- Faucet: https://goerli-faucet.slock.it/
Other :
0
: Olympic, Ethereum public pre-release testnet1
: Frontier, Homestead, Metropolis, the Ethereum public main network1
: Classic, the (un)forked public Ethereum Classic main network, chain ID61
1
: Expanse, an alternative Ethereum implementation, chain ID2
2
: Morden, the public Ethereum testnet, now Ethereum Classic testnet3
: Ropsten, the public cross-client Ethereum testnet4
: Rinkeby, the public Geth PoA testnet8
: Ubiq, the public Gubiq main network with flux difficulty chain ID8
42
: Kovan, the public Parity PoA testnet77
: Sokol, the public POA Network testnet99
: Core, the public POA Network main network100
: xDai, the public MakerDAO/POA Network main network401697
: Tobalaba, the public Energy Web Foundation testnet7762959
: Musicoin, the music blockchain61717561
: Aquachain, ASIC resistant chain[Other]
: Could indicate that your connected to a local development test network.
Source : https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/27048/comparison-of-the-different-testnets/30072#30072