How do these data query middleware protocols compare?
Covalent continuously indexes every single block, transaction, wallet balance and position. Billions of rows of data are immediately available for your project via an API without having to write any code.
Time to ship: 5 minutes
Projects need to hire and budget for a blockchain engineer to work on a "subgraph" before it is useful. Engineering talent is the most sought after resource in the blockchain space!
Time to ship: 20+ hours
Covalent's APIs are built from the ground up to support a diverse, sophisticated and demanding customer-base with billions of dollars at stake. Covalent powers all the major wallets for taxes, forensics and other emergent use cases.
Verdict: Proven and battle tested across multiple use cases and target markets.
The Graph's customers are mostly DApps early in their life-cycle. DApps have smaller and less-demanding data requirements.
Verdict: Single use case and target market.
Covalent has multiple paying customers and reached profitability in 2020. As the industry starts to understand the value of Covalent, revenue will also scale to support the token economics.
Verdict: Verdict: Clear value and revenue drivers.
The Graph hasn't started commercialization yet and it is unclear if their customers will ever pay for their services.
Verdict: Unclear monetization prospects.
Covalent already indexes and has customers on 7 different blockchain networks, including Matic and others (to be announced soon). One unified API for all blockchains.
Verdict: Future-proof and scales across use cases and networks.
The Graph only supports Ethereum today and it is unclear what their multichain future looks like.
Verdict: Limited applicability today.