Free Ethereum RPC: rpcfree.com (no signup) vs etox.io (API key)

Many developers search for free Ethereum RPC without an API key or Ethereum RPC no rate limit. Every honest provider enforces limits — the difference is whether those limits are visible. etox operates two public-friendly tiers: a completely open endpoint on rpcfree.com for paste-and-go testing, and a higher-quota free plan on etox.io once you register and create a key in the dashboard.

rpcfree.com — no signup

Traffic is keyed by IP prefix (IPv4 full address, IPv6 first three hextets). The gateway applies a sliding window of 10 requests per second, a daily CU budget derived from spreading monthly fairness across the calendar, and a 10,000,000 CU monthly ceiling per prefix. Response headers expose remaining daily allowance and nudge heavy users toward etox.io with an X-Upgrade: https://etox.io hint.

etox.io free — email + API key

After signup, the free plan includes 20,000,000 CU per month with the same baseline 10 req/sec per key, plus access to per-key analytics that the public tier cannot offer without identifying you. This is the right path for hackathon demos that outgrow IP-based throttling or for staging environments that need stable allowlisting.

Side-by-side

When to upgrade

If you see HTTP 429 responses or shrinking daily remaining headers, you are hitting fair-use guardrails. Upgrading to Pro unlocks an order-of-magnitude higher CU pool and relaxed RPS for production workloads — still backed by the same bare-metal nodes described on the homepage.

Start immediately on rpcfree.com or create a key on dashboard.etox.io.