ethexplorer.org exists for one reason: block explorers are the window most people use to check what happened on Ethereum, and choosing the wrong one, or misreading the right one, costs people time and sometimes money. We compare Ethereum explorers the way a careful user would, write plain-language guides on reading transactions, wallets, tokens and contracts, and run a free live Ethereum explorer that anyone can use without an account.
Who we are
We are an independent editorial team of writers and developers who use Ethereum every day: sending transactions, deploying contracts on testnets, debugging failed swaps and answering questions from friends who cannot find their deposit. We are not affiliated with the Ethereum Foundation, with any client team, or with any of the explorers we review. Nobody at Etherscan, Blockscout, Ethplorer, Blockchair or any other service sees our reviews before they are published.
Our mission is simple: help readers pick the right tool for the job and understand what it is telling them. Sometimes that means recommending the biggest name. Sometimes it means pointing out that an open-source explorer you can run yourself is the better choice.
How we test Ethereum explorers
Every explorer we review goes through the same set of tasks on Ethereum mainnet, repeated on Sepolia where the service supports it. We look up known reference data where the correct answer is not in doubt: the USDT contract 0xdAC17F958D2ee523a2206206994597C13D831ec7, the WETH contract 0xC02aaA39b223FE8D0A0e5C4F27eAD9083C756Cc2, the ENS name vitalik.eth, block 12,965,000 (the first block with an EIP-1559 base fee) and block 15,537,394 (the first proof-of-stake block after the Merge). We also look up our own recent test transactions, including a deliberately failed one, because that is where explorers differ most.
We then score each explorer from 0 to 10 across eight criteria. Data accuracy and readability carry the most weight, because a beautiful page that shows the wrong fee is worse than useless.
| Criterion | What we check |
|---|---|
| Data accuracy | Balances, fees, burnt ETH, confirmations and token transfers match the raw chain data from a JSON-RPC node. |
| Readability | Can a non-developer tell whether a transaction succeeded, who received the tokens and what it cost? |
| Token and contract depth | Verified source code, Read/Write contract, decoded inputs and logs, proxy detection, ERC-20 and NFT views. |
| API and free tier | Whether a key is required, rate limits, record caps and which chains the free plan still covers. |
| Privacy | Account requirements, third-party trackers and whether searches can be tied to you. |
| Open source | Licence, public repository and whether you can self-host the explorer. |
| Speed | How quickly new blocks appear and how long pages take to load on an average connection. |
| Multi-chain coverage | Testnets, layer 2 networks and Ethereum Classic, and how easy it is to switch between them. |
Scores are re-checked when an explorer ships a major change, for example when a free API tier loses chains or record limits, or when a network upgrade adds new transaction types. The date at the top of each review tells you when we last verified it. The results feed our ranked list of the best Ethereum explorers and individual reviews such as the Blockscout review.
Editorial independence and how we make money
Running a site costs money, and you deserve to know where ours comes from. Some outbound links on ethexplorer.org are partner links, most notably the link to the cryptocurrency exchange shown in page headers and some call-out boxes. If you click one and open an account, we may be paid a commission. That is the only way we are compensated.
Partner relationships never affect scores or rankings. The exchange we link to is not a block explorer and is not rated on this site. We do not accept payment from explorers, we do not sell sponsored reviews, and we write partner mentions in neutral language with a risk note nearby. All outbound links carry rel="nofollow". Nothing on this site is financial advice; read our terms of use for the details.
Corrections policy
Explorers change fast and we will occasionally get something wrong. When a reader or a company points out an error, we verify it against primary sources such as official documentation, the explorer itself or raw chain data. Confirmed factual errors are fixed promptly and the page's update date changes. If a correction changes a score or a recommendation, we say so on the page. We do not quietly rewrite verdicts to please anyone, and we do not remove critical points just because a company asks.
How our live explorer tool works
Our free Ethereum explorer tool is built for a static website, so there is no server of ours in the middle. Your browser queries public, keyless endpoints directly: the open-source Blockscout API for indexed data such as tokens, labels and ENS names, with public JSON-RPC nodes from PublicNode, dRPC and 1RPC as a fallback. Prices come from CoinGecko through Blockscout. We chose keyless sources on purpose: an API key shipped in browser code would be public and quickly abused, and it would force us to proxy your searches through our own servers. We do not log the addresses or hashes you look up. The privacy policy explains exactly what the data providers can see.
If you want to understand what the tool shows you, start with our guide on how to use an Ethereum explorer.
Contact
Spotted an error, want an explorer considered for review, or writing about block explorers? Email us at contact@ethexplorer.org. Our contact page explains what we can and cannot help with, including an important warning: we can never recover funds or reverse transactions, and anyone claiming to do so on our behalf is a scammer.