Firedancer

Firedancer is a validator client for the Solana blockchain developed by Jump Crypto. It is designed from the ground up to deliver high performance and security by leveraging concurrency models inspired by low latency trading systems. The client reimplements core Solana primitives with novel, high-performance techniques to optimize speed and efficiency. Its architecture supports running within a highly restrictive sandbox environment with minimal system calls, enhancing security and reducing attack surfaces.

Unlike other Solana validators, Firedancer is written entirely from scratch, which increases client diversity on the Solana network. This diversity helps protect the network against supply chain attacks that could arise from shared build tooling or dependencies. The project currently offers two validators: Firedancer, a full from-scratch implementation still under development, and Frankendancer, a hybrid validator combining Firedancer's networking and block production with Agave's execution and consensus code. Frankendancer is available on Solana's testnet and mainnet-beta, while Firedancer itself is not yet production-ready.

Firedancer targets infrastructure developers and node operators who want to run a fast, secure, and independent Solana validator. It currently supports Linux systems with kernel version 4.18 or newer. Developers can get started by cloning the GitHub repository, installing dependencies, and running the provided development commands to launch a local validator cluster. Comprehensive documentation and guides are available to assist with setup, configuration, and releases. The project is open source under the Apache 2.0 license.