Consensus clients
For more info about Execution clients and Validator clients start here: Validator clients explained 👀
There are multiple consensus clients (previously known as 'Eth2' clients) to support the consensus upgrades. They are running the Beacon Chain and provide a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism to execution clients.
Consensus clients all follow the same specification ↗. If a client doesn't follow this spec it won't be able to come to consensus with the rest of the network.
Lighthouse
Lighthouse is a consensus client implementation written in Rust under the Apache-2.0 license. It is maintained by Sigma Prime and has been stable and production-ready since Beacon Chain genesis. It is relied upon by various enterprises, staking pools and individuals. It aims to be secure, performant and interoperable in a wide range of environments, from desktop PCs to sophisticated automated deployments.
Loadstar
Lodestar is a production-ready consensus client implementation written in Typescript under the LGPL-3.0 license. It is maintained by ChainSafe Systems and is the newest of the consensus clients for solo-stakers, developers and researchers. Lodestar consists of a beacon node and validator client powered by JavaScript implementations of Ethereum protocols. Lodestar aims to improve Ethereum usability with light clients, expand accessibility to a larger group of developers and further contribute to ecosystem diversity.
Nimbus
Nimbus is a consensus client implementation written in Nim under the Apache-2.0 license. It is a production-ready client in use by solo-stakers and staking pools. Nimbus is designed for resource efficiency, making it easy to run on resource-restricted devices and enterprise infrastructure with equal ease, without compromising stability or reward performance. A lighter resource footprint means the client has a greater margin of safety when the network is under stress.
Implemented by Trinity. Works like fast sync but also downloads the data needed to execute latest blocks, which allows you to query the chain within the first few minutes from starting.
Syncs state first and enables you to query RPC in a few minutes.
Still in development and not fully reliable, background sync is slowed down and RPC responses might fail.
Prysm
Prysm is a full-featured, open source consensus client written in Go under the GPL-3.0 license. It features an optional webapp UI and prioritizes user experience, documentation, and configurability for both stake-at-home and institutional users.
Teku
Teku is one of the original Beacon Chain genesis clients. Alongside the usual goals (security, robustness, stability, usability, performance), Teku specifically aims to comply fully with all the various consensus client standards.
Teku offers very flexible deployment options. The beacon node and validator client can be run together as a single process, which is extremely convenient for solo stakers, or nodes can be run separately for sophisticated staking operations. In addition, Teku is fully interoperable with Web3Signer↗ for signing key security and slashing protection.
Teku is written in Java and is Apache 2.0 licensed. It is developed by the Protocols team at ConsenSys that is also responsible for Besu and Web3Signer.
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