Who Are Chainlink's Competitors? The Oracle War

(Updated 10. September 2022)

This archived comparison examines Chainlink's place among competing oracle networks.

The four competing oracle networks I compared were Band Protocol, UMA, Nest Protocol and API3. In the historical data I gathered, Chainlink listed 22 times as many integrations as those four combined.

Chainlink had the largest integration count in the oracle-sector data I gathered.

At the time of writing, Chainlink listed almost 1,500 integrations, while the closest selected competitor listed fewer than 27.

"Why are integrations and partnerships so important for Oracles?"

Oracle networks are integrated into other projects to connect blockchain applications with external data:

(source: Chainlink solutions overview)

As you can see from the image above, the use-case for oracle projects is to be used by other projects to feed them real-world data or feed real-world projects with blockchain data:

Oracles link the blockchain world and the real world together.

For that reason, I used partnership and integration counts as one measure of adoption for oracle networks such as Chainlink and Band Protocol.

I used partnership and integration counts as one measure of oracle-network adoption, and Chainlink had a substantial lead on that measure.

Suggested reading:

Chainlink's long-term outlook

The assumptions behind a $1,000 Chainlink scenario

Adoption Of Chainlink vs. Competitors

I made a graph comparing the number of partnerships and integrations listed by Chainlink and the selected competitors:

(Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

In the historical comparison, Chainlink's integration count was far above the selected competitors.

Put another way:

In this sample, Chainlink listed 22 times as many integrations as the four selected competitors combined.

That adoption gap was why I included Chainlink in a separate five-year crypto comparison.