GraphQL and Archival Store Complete the Sui Data Stack
Sui's new data stack is complete: gRPC, GraphQL RPC, and the Archival Store are live and ready for production, with JSON-RPC sunsetting on July 31, 2026
Main Takeaways
- The full Sui data stack, including gRPC, GraphQL RPC, and the Archival Store, is now generally available and ready for production workloads.
- JSON-RPC will be permanently deactivated on July 31, 2026; migrating now means better performance today, not just deadline compliance.
- Four managed providers (Quicknode, Ankr, BlockPi, and ZAN) offer the full stack as a service so teams can skip the infrastructure work entirely.
Overview
The way apps read data from Sui is changing. After a year of upgrades, the new infrastructure is fully in place.
The GraphQL RPC and Archival Store are now generally available, joining gRPC to complete a modern, production-grade data stack designed for what developers are actually building on Sui.
This article covers what’s changed, what it means for apps, and what builders and developers need to do before July 31, 2026.
From One Interface Option to Three
Sui started out using JSON-RPC to give developers a single, consistent way to read blockchain data. But as applications on Sui have evolved to serve a wide variety of use cases, a one-size-fits-all query interface creates real bottlenecks. Different use cases need different things.
The new stack is designed around that reality. Each layer is purpose-built:
gRPC: Designed for applications that need data fast and continuously: high-frequency trading, live DeFi dashboards, anything that was previously polling for updates. gRPC introduces streaming, meaning your app listens for events rather than repeatedly asking if anything changed. Lower latency, less overhead. Details on utilizing gRPC on Sui can be found in this article.
GraphQL RPC + General-purpose Indexer: Designed for frontends, analytics, and wallets. GraphQL lets you fetch exactly what you need in a single query (an object and its full history, for example) rather than chaining multiple RPC calls. Backed by a Postgres indexer and the Archival Store, it supports filtering, sorting, and composable queries across both live and historical data. More details on GraphQL and the General-purpose Indexer are in this article.
Archival Store: Full nodes prune data to stay performant. That's fine for most operations, but it makes deep historical queries difficult or impossible without running a dedicated full node yourself. The Archival Store solves this: a scalable, Bigtable-backed service that provides access to the full ledger from genesis, integrated as a seamless fallback for both gRPC and GraphQL. More details on the Archival Store can be found in the Sui documentation here.
For those interested in hearing more about the data stack in detail, please watch this livestream led by members of Mysten Labs’ engineers.
The Deadline: July 31, 2026
JSON-RPC will be fully deactivated on July 31, 2026. This is a hard deadline, and your users will lose access to real-time data if you haven't migrated by then.
There's also a stronger reason to migrate now rather than waiting: the new stack delivers real performance, usability, and functional improvements, not just compliance with a deadline. Removing polling latency alone with gRPC changes the feel of a live app. By collapsing multiple RPC calls into a single query and returning UI-ready JSON, GraphQL reduces overfetching and round-trips, making complex data feel instant.
The earlier you migrate, the more time you have to tune your implementation rather than scrambling to meet a deadline.
The Four Full-Stack Providers
Running this stack yourself is possible, but it means managing Postgres databases, indexers, RPC services, and terabytes of transactional chain history, which is continually growing. Most teams shouldn't be spending engineering time on that.
Sui has partnered with four providers who offer the full stack as a managed service, with global coverage and enterprise-grade reliability. Pick the one that fits your region and requirements, and skip the infrastructure work entirely.
Quicknode — US
Quicknode provides fast, reliable RPC and API infrastructure specifically engineered for Sui builders to scale without the burden of self-hosting. By offering elastic RPC endpoints for both Mainnet and Testnet, Quicknode gives developers the tools they need to deploy applications with enterprise-grade performance and global coverage. Their platform is optimized for high-performance workloads, delivering 2.5x faster average response times against standard benchmarks while maintaining SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certifications to meet strict security and compliance requirements.
As part of the new Sui data stack, Quicknode offers full support for gRPC streaming, GraphQL RPC, and the Archival Store. This integration allows teams to leverage real-time data access and enhanced APIs through a managed service that handles the complexities of backend data synchronization and storage. By utilizing Quicknode’s infrastructure, engineering teams can bypass the operational overhead of managing massive chain growth and focus their resources entirely on building superior products.
Ankr — US
Ankr’s global RPC infrastructure is built on a foundation of bare-metal servers and private fiber networking, specifically designed to deliver ultra-low latency and cloud outage resistance for production Sui applications. By moving away from standard virtualized setups, Ankr provides builders with a high-performance environment that handles over 8 billion daily requests with 99.99% uptime. This robust hardware layer ensures that developers can scale high-traffic applications using specialized SDKs that are fully optimized for the network’s unique architecture.
Within the new Sui data stack, Ankr provides seamless access to high-speed gRPC and GraphQL endpoints and full archival data. This allows developers to easily stream real-time on-chain data and query the full ledger history without the significant engineering overhead of managing independent infrastructure. By offering a managed service that integrates gRPC and GraphQL RPC natively, Ankr enables teams to power complex, data-heavy applications while maintaining the speed and reliability required for enterprise-grade deployments.
BlockPI — EU
With over eight years of experience building Web3 infrastructure, BlockPI provides a comprehensive Full-Stack RPC solution designed to serve as the backbone for high-performance dApps on Sui. Their architecture integrates seamless data indexing with ultra-low latency node connectivity, delivering industry-leading price-performance and enterprise-grade reliability. By offering localized SLAs and a highly competitive cost structure, BlockPI ensures that teams can maintain global standards of uptime and speed while optimizing their operational overhead.
Beyond pure infrastructure, BlockPI actively accelerates the growth of the Sui ecosystem through the Sui x BlockPI Builder Program. This initiative empowers projects at every stage - Early, Growth, and Strategic - by providing access to free RPC credits, one-on-one technical support, and regional co-marketing exposure. By combining these resources with full support for the new Sui data stack, BlockPI enables developers to transition their MVPs to global scale with dedicated infrastructure that handles the complexities of data indexing and archival storage.
ZAN — APAC
ZAN provides a professional data service platform optimized specifically for the Sui ecosystem, delivering millisecond-level latency across the Asia-Pacific region. As a technology brand of Ant Digital Technologies, ZAN leverages extensive experience to provide a development platform that allows teams to focus on their core business logic rather than raw data management. Their infrastructure is built to be sustainably scalable, offering full access to all Sui on-chain data at approximately one-fifth the cost of comparable market products.
The ZAN Sui Data Service integrates both GraphQL APIs and real-time gRPC subscriptions to meet the diverse needs of modern dApps. This stack ensures builders can create highly responsive applications while maintaining clear visibility into their query costs.
Build the Product, Not the Pipeline
The pitch is straightforward: JSON-RPC lets you read chain data. This stack lets you build better products on Sui.
Self-hosting the new stack is real infrastructure work. Postgres databases, indexers, RPC services, archival nodes, and ongoing maintenance as the chain grows. A managed provider removes that entirely. For teams that don't want to manage infrastructure themselves, you get SLAs, regional edge caching, and enterprise uptime guarantees, with engineering time freed up for the product.
The migration is beginning. Starting now means you get to do it right.
To learn more about how to migrate, please review the migration docs.