Solana Dev Tools in 2025: It's Actually... Really Good!

Posted: July 11, 2025

Remember when building on Solana used to feel like you were dragging Rust across glass? Yeah — those days are (mostly) over.

Solana in 2025 is shaping up to be one of the most enjoyable chains to build on — fast transactions, cheap fees, and finally a proper developer experience. Let’s break down the state of Solana dev tooling and explore why building on this ecosystem is no longer a punishment, but increasingly a pleasure.

From Bare Metal to Turbocharged Dev Environments

When Solana first gained traction, you basically had two choices: raw Rust or rawer Rust...

Anchor: Still the King of the Hill

Anchor remains the most widely adopted framework...

Seahorse: Python Joins the Party

Not everyone wants to write Rust. Seahorse lets developers write Solana programs using Python...

Solang: Solidity on Solana

Solana has traditionally kept Ethereum at arm’s length, but Solang changes that...

Next-Gen Tools for the Next Wave

The raw dev frameworks are important, but what makes Solana feel genuinely modern in 2025 are the surrounding tools...

Helius: RPC, Enhanced

Helius is doing for RPC what Alchemy did for Ethereum...

LamportDAO & Mucho CLI

LamportDAO’s tools give you a web-based IDE. Mucho CLI wraps the core workflows into a DevOps dream...

GameShift API & AWS Blueprints

Solana’s game and Web2 onboarding angle has improved massively...

Account Abstraction Libraries

Pinocchio and Surfpool lead the way here...

UX Toolkits and Wallet Integrations

Umi, Kinobi, and Squads v4

These SDKs are finally catching up to the ecosystem’s complexity...

Developer Onboarding in 2025

Getting started on Solana no longer requires tribal knowledge...

Mapping the Ecosystem

The Solana dev tooling ecosystem now looks like a fully armed starship...

Opportunities & RFPs

Where can developers still make a dent in 2025...

Final Thoughts: Solana Devs, You’re Spoiled Now

It’s wild how far things have come. If you gave up on Solana in 2022, it might be time to take another look...