Ethereum nodes are computers participating in Ethereum blockchain network, these nodes are actual computers running software that verifies, stores, and sometimes creates blocks. The actual software is called a "client" and it allows us to interact with the blockchain using the JSON-RPC API, parse and verify the blockchain, and read or write to smart-contracts.
Ethereum is reaching far more developers than ever. With this growth adoption of Ethereum, there has been a flow of multiple Ethereum clients in the industry. Aleth, Geth, and Trinity are the official libraries written and maintained by the Ethereum foundation. Meanwhile, Parity (now known as OpenEthereum) and Hyperledger Besu are two of the most popular third-party clients.
OpenEthereum (ex-parity client) is the second most popular Ethereum client right after Geth, It is aimed to be the fastest, lightest, and most secure Ethereum Client. It’s written in the Rust programming language and maintained by a group of core OpenEthereum developers and other contributors. In this article, we will learn how to run a Parity node.