Blockchain technology has become one of the latest developments and the biggest technologies of the modern-day internet, and it is transforming different industries. An open platform has the code publicly available to people which means at any time a person can read, change, duplicate the code, or verify transactions on the platform. The kind of blockchain platform (open source or closed source) will affect differently the individuals or organizations that use these platforms or those that want to use them. Many blockchain development companies and startups have been constructing blockchain platforms that can be either open-source or proprietary.
While choosing an open-source blockchain solution for medium and large enterprises, organizations should look into the factors related to their specific use of the system, scalability, the existing technology stack, and the available development resources. It’s necessary to keep yourself as well informed as possible on the newest innovations in the blockchain world since new features are being added every day. This article will be about the best open blockchain platforms which are made free of charge and all the details you need to know about them will be covered in it.
What Are Open Source Blockchain Platforms?
The top blockchain platforms can be either publicly distributed (open source) or owned by a company (proprietary). What is open source blockchain essentially? A public blockchain platform without any restrictions is a platform where everybody can be a part of the network and participate in the process of validation of network transactions. On the other hand, a private blockchain platform is a one-controlled-by-one-entity type of blockchain in which only employees or partners of that corporate entity are allowed to join, read, and add data to the ledger.
In open-source blockchain platforms, all persons are on the same level and nobody is seen. Every person in the network has a unique cryptographic code that can be either a public or a private key. Unlike private or enterprise blockchain platforms, no individual group or institution can change, edit, or modify the data on an open-source blockchain network. For the best open source project just visit the Open Source Collection or platforms like Github or Gitlab.
List Of Best Open Source Blockchain Platforms
Several open-source blockchain platforms are the basis of the decentralized projects or applications that are being built for several industries. All these platforms have their special features and capabilities, but the final goal is to let developers create new blockchain solutions for different industries. Here are a few of the top open-source blockchain platforms that you should consider.
1. Hyperledger Fabric
Hyperledger Fabric is a blockchain development framework of the Linux Foundation. Although this is an open-source platform, it is centered on permissioned, private blockchain networks, which means all the participants are still verified and authenticated. This added layer of transparency eases the process of enterprises adopting the Hyperledger Fabric platform for their blockchain development needs. The Hyperledger Fabric platform is now a huge open-source project, more than 15,000 engineers and 120,000 organizations are currently collaborating on it.
Hyperledger Fabric is a distributed ledger platform having a modular architecture. Hence, it is comprised of several elements that are arranged as pluggable installations that provide a fast and easy means of the creation of scalable decentralized apps. Transactions on this platform are realized by consensus algorithms like Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT), RAFT and Solo. The employment of different consensus algorithms makes enterprises on the network select the consensus mechanisms that are the most fitting for their needs.
2. Ethereum
Ethereum, which was released in 2013, is one of the oldest platforms in the blockchain industry, and its popularity is almost on par with Bitcoin. Even though it has its native cryptocurrency and is the power provider for digital assets, Ethereum is better recognized as a versatile open-source platform for creating and deploying decentralized applications (dApps). It is the ideal choice for adopting if you are willing to establish a project on a decentralized network.
Besides, Ethereum is well-known also for self-executing contracts which are useful for efficient, secure, and transparent digital transactions. In the old times, Ethereum transactions were verified using a Proof-of-Work system where miners created new blocks by solving the hardest mathematical puzzles. This was proved to be expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, the Ethereum platform used the Proof of Stake consensus mechanism which enabled the participants to validate the transactions by staking their cryptocurrency as collateral.
3. Tezos
Tezos is a decentralized platform for the creation and development of smart contracts and applications. It is a user-owned and user-driven platform designed to be able to grow as developers constantly check the transactions, check the platform’s operating systems and propose changes to the platform’s blockchain frameworks. Unlike other Blockchain platforms, Tezos, being a decentralized finance platform is based on a Proof of Stake consensus mechanism that is more lightweight and efficient.
The Tezos platform employs a dynamically updatable protocol that is customizable for the users’ needs. The developers can add new key features to the Tezos platform through the on-chain upgrade mechanism, hence there is no need for forking the whole system. The community of developers who are engaged in the Tezos platform have made significant progress in terms of improving the performance and increasing the size limit on smart contracts.
4. Corda
The Corda network is a platform that is interoperable and open to everybody; thus, organizations can work unanimously and efficiently and deal with the value directly in a trusted and secure environment. Corda employs an entirely new consensus mechanism to enable low-cost transactions and the exchange of data on its network. While transactions are cryptographically connected, they are not combined into blocks as in the standard blockchain. Therefore, the meaning of this is that the transactions are processed quickly and in real time.
The largest application of the Corda Network has been in the financial industry where it has been widely adopted due to it being able to speed up transactions and facilitate secure data exchange. Nevertheless, it has also been used in other sectors like healthcare, and insurance, and also in the digital assets field like non-fungible tokens.
5. EOSIO
EOSIO is a blockchain protocol that was created in 2018 and it is open-source. It is a smart contracts platform with the features of optimizing the development of decentralized applications with maximum speed & flexibility. Besides, the proof of stake system is used to validate the transactions and the EOSIO governance system, which has a consensus-based approach, permits all the users to vote on the changes that are to be made to the platform.
The EOSIO platform is ideal for large-scale enterprise applications and has also been chosen for public and private deployment. The worker independence of the platform is due to its open-source nature; it can be customized according to the specific business needs of different industries. Thus, till now, there have been over 400 decentralized apps that have been created on this platform.
Wrap Up
These platforms have a variety of features and serve different purposes thus, the exploration of these platforms can lead to the acquisition of the knowledge on the blockchain ecosystem and the potential ways of its application. Above all, do not forget that the blockchain universe is changing fast, so it is worth keeping up with the newest news and trends.
