Ethereum vs Solana

Which is more decentralized — Ethereum or Solana? A side-by-side on consensus, nodes, clients and governance.

	Ethereum	Solana
Grade	B	C+
Type	L1 · PoS	L1 · PoS + PoH
Nakamoto coefficient	~3*	~29
Node / validator set	~1M validators · many node operators	~770 validators (down from ~2,560 in 2023)
Clients / sequencer	Exec: Geth ~41%, Nethermind ~38%, Besu ~16% (improving)	Agave + Firedancer (diversifying)
Governance	Off-chain rough consensus	Off-chain + foundation programs (SFDP)
Key risk	Lido staking share; Geth client lead	Validator count fell ~65% to ~770

Ethereum B

~1M validators across many operators
Improving client diversity (no client > 2/3)
Largest decentralized app ecosystem

Staking-pool concentration (Lido share)
Geth still the leading execution client

Solana C+

Nakamoto coefficient ~29
Adding a second client (Firedancer)
Geographically distributed validators

Validator count down ~65% since 2023
High hardware cost to run a node

Bottom line

Strong on breadth; the work left is reducing staking-pool and client concentration. Mid-tier and improving on clients, but the falling validator count is a real concern.