Polkadot, Cosmos, Avalanche, Solana, and Cardano: Comparing the Top 5 Blockchains in 2025

This article compares Polkadot, Cosmos, Avalanche, Solana, and Cardano side by side and explores their architecture, transaction speed, consensus, block times, and ecosystem.

Polkadot, Cosmos, Avalanche, Solana, and Cardano are some of the most promising blockchains in 2025, demonstrating each blockchain’s hundred paths to a solution to the blockchain trilemma, namely scalability, security, and decentralization. This article compares them side by side and explores their architecture, transaction speed, consensus, block times, and ecosystem.

Here is a quick at-a-glance comparison:

Different blockchains excel in different categories:

Diving into the full comparison below to see which blockchain wins in each category in 2025!

1. Blockchain Structure: Monolithic vs Multi-Chain – Who Does It Best?

When it comes to modern blockchain construction, the ways in which they are built under the hood is arguably their biggest differentiation. Some blockchains embrace simplicity through what is called a monolithic approach, which means a single chain does all of the heavy lifting. Other blockchains choose a multi-chain or modular approach, which in turn means many chains working in unison, each one used for different roles.

In this section, we will describe the architecture of Polkadot, Cosmos, Avalanche, Solana and Cardano – illustrating their unique approaches to multi-chain technologies and how each relates to scalability, performance and flexibility.

Architecture Comparison Table

Polkadot the Multichain Powerhouse

Polkadot is designed to embody a polylithic blockchain architecture. This means it has a Relay Chain enabling multiple parallel processing parachains.

Each parachain is its own blockchain, however all parachains plug into Polkadot’s Relay Chain which manages security and finality, hence by distributing the work across many parachains, each of which can have parallel processing, Polkadot can theoretically handle millions of transactions per second.

Polkadot 2.0 is also introducing Elastic Coretime which is an optional term for developers to hire a flexible amount of space on the network – important for on-demand scaling.

👉 Learn more about the architecture of Polkadot 2.0.

Cosmos: the Internet of Blockchains

Cosmos employs a similar multi-chain approach but instead of a single Relay Chain, Cosmos features a Cosmos Hub enabling many independent zones (blockchains) to operate through the IBC Protocol (Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol).

Zones operate in complete sovereignty, with their own validators, rules, and governance, while simultaneously allowing for token and data transfers anywhere in the ecosystem.

👉 Explore the Cosmos Ecosystem.

Avalanche: Subnets for Customization

Avalanche has adopted a multi-chain model as well; where they allow subnets.

By default, Avalanche contains three chains (X-Chain handles assets, C-Chain handles EVM smart contracts, and P-Chain handles metadata), but they also allow for the launching of custom subnets by anyone on the EVM and Avalanche protocols.

Subnets are flexible; they can be public, private, or even regulatory-compliant and enable any and all of the capabilities of the Avalanche consensus (called Snowman); which fast tracks improvement for developers and organizations working in the Avalanche ecosystem.

👉 More about Avalanche subnets.

Solana: The High Speed Monolithic Beast

Solana does it a little differently. Instead of a multichain or subnets, Solana is pure monolithic.

In fact, everything in Solana is done on a single chain, but due to Solana’s way of implementing Proof of History (PoH) and then Tower BFT as a design, Solana can do parallel-processing within one chain.

This simplicity is one reason Solana is so incredibly fast and cheap, but that also means the network is forced to use the same chain for everyone’s activity, causing congestion during peak use times.

👉 See how Solana works.

Cardano: Secure and Monolithic by Design

Cardano is also a monolithic blockchain architecture, however it is focused heavily on security, formal methods and sustainability.

Unlike others discussed, Cardano builds on 2 separate layers (Settlement Layer and Computation Layer) both of which operate on 1 chain.

Cardano does not utilize built-in sharding or parachains, however Cardano is also working on developing Layer 2 solutions like Hydra for off-chain scaling with a clean main chain.

👉 Cardano’s official documentation.

Ranking: Top blockchain architectures for flexibility / scalability

2. Transaction Throughput (TPS): Which Blockchain Is the Fastest?

When discussing blockchain performance, transaction throughput (TPS) is easily one of the most discussed metrics. TPS is important because it reflects how many transactions a blockchain can execute per second, and that is important for user experience, DeFi, gaming, and any real world application that requires high speed settlements.

That said, TPS isn’t the whole picture, it is also crucial to recognize if the TPS speeds are theoretical maximums or actual real world performance.

Let’s breakdown Polkadot, Cosmos, Avalanche, Solana and Cardano