What Is Yellowstone in Solana?
Yellowstone is the most widely used Geyser plugin for Solana. It implements a gRPC server that streams real-time blockchain data — accounts, transactions, blocks, and slots — directly from the validator to subscribers. The project is also known as “Yellowstone gRPC” or “Dragon’s Mouth.”
What Yellowstone streams
| Data type | Description |
|---|---|
| Accounts | Real-time account updates as state changes occur |
| Transactions | Transaction data with metadata, filterable by account keys or program IDs |
| Blocks | Full block data including all transactions and metadata |
| Slots | Slot status updates (processed, confirmed, finalized) |
| Block meta | Block metadata without full transaction data |
| Entries | Individual block entries (batches of transactions) |
Yellowstone vs WebSocket
Yellowstone gRPC offers several advantages over standard Solana WebSocket subscriptions:
- Server-side filtering — filter by program ID, account, or transaction content before data is sent
- Backpressure handling — gRPC flow control prevents data loss under high load
- Higher throughput — gRPC binary protocol is more efficient than WebSocket JSON
- Reconnection — gRPC clients can reconnect without missing data (when implemented with backfill)
FAQ
Do I need to run my own validator to use Yellowstone? No. RPC providers offer hosted Yellowstone gRPC endpoints. Running your own validator gives the lowest latency but is not required.
Is Yellowstone the same as Geyser? Yellowstone is a Geyser plugin. Geyser is the validator’s plugin interface; Yellowstone is the specific plugin that exposes data over gRPC.
What language clients are available? Official clients exist for Rust and TypeScript. Community clients are available for Python, Go, and other languages.
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