# Project Proposal - Codename ClientBeat ## Motivation The client ecosystem is different to how it was a few years ago. Today operators can choose between multiple high-quality clients, with new ones joining the ranks. Practical information about the clients exists but it is scattered across repos, websites, X threads and tribal memory. This makes it difficult for operators to make informed and use-case dependent decisions. ## Abstract We propose a dashboard which serves factual objective information about clients and surfaces the trade-offs that node operators care about, to help with the decision fatigue. ### Goals - Help node operators choose the right client for their use-case - Comparable information across clients - Documenting trade-offs and niches explicitly - Ease of contribution - Community-maintained with low overhead for client teams ### Non-goals - Not a ranking - Not a security audit - Not replacing client docs - Not an alignment measure ## Phase 1 achievables This phase is estimated to take a few weeks. Here the goal would be to surface the existing and easily inferred information. ### Static or slow-changing verifiable data - Client language, license, etc. - Supported sync modes and data indices - Execution API method support - Supported networks - Pruning options ### Operational characteristics - Approx. disk usage per sync mode - Benchmarks from Ethpandaops lab - Typical hardware requirements (as documented or reported by users) ### Operator risk - Past incidents - Network majority rates - Verification shortcuts ## Phase 2 - Mid-term extensions The goal here would be to integrate existing data sources, as well as currently in-progress collection efforts. - RPC benchmarks - State-related data such as sync speed - Hive consensus and engine test suite results ## Phase 3 - Exploratory ideas The features here require extensive lift in terms of development and resources to surface live data from each client. - Live db size per node type - Tagging client releases in the benchmark data to identify trends - "Value secured" (inspired by L2beat) that demonstrates how much stake is the client securing ## Closing The intent here is to start small and iterate in public, guided by operator needs and client team feedback. The goal is to present information about client as its ecosystem continues to mature and diversify, rather than picking winners.