Zerion API vs Dune SIM API: A Comprehensive Comparison

Your choice of data infrastructure determines whether your wallet application, portfolio tracker, or DeFi platform succeeds or fails. Two prominent solutions have emerged for accessing multichain wallet data: Zerion API and Dune's SIM API.

Both deliver real-time blockchain data across multiple chains, but they take different approaches. This comparison examines their features, performance, and ideal use cases to help you choose the right API for your needs.

Understanding Zerion API and Dune SIM API

Zerion API is an enterprise-grade wallet data API built specifically for consumer-facing applications. It delivers comprehensive wallet data—tokens, NFTs, DeFi positions, and transaction history—across both EVM chains and Solana through a single, normalized API. The API originated from the internal infrastructure used to power Zerion’s consumer products: a portfolio tracker and a wallet.  

Dune SIM API is a real-time multichain developer platform from Dune Analytics. SIM delivers normalized blockchain data with enriched metadata and pricing across 60+ chains. SIM API is separate from Dune Analytics for analysts but is rooted in the company’s data expertise. 

Both Zerion and Dune eliminate the need for running your own indexing infrastructure. They differ in coverage depth, feature sets, and target use cases.

Core Features Comparison

Data Coverage

Zerion API provides comprehensive wallet-level data:

• Token balances with real-time USD pricing across 16 currencies
• NFT positions and collections with full metadata
• DeFi protocol positions from over 8,000 protocols
• Multichain transaction history with decoded operations (approve, swap, deposit, withdraw, etc.)
• Portfolio value and PnL calculations
• Chart data for tokens and wallet performance

Dune SIM API focuses on fundamental blockchain data:

• EVM token balances (native and ERC20) with USD pricing
• NFT data (ERC721 and ERC1155)
• Multichain raw transactions and decoded activity feeds
• Token holder information
• Token metadata and pricing

The key difference: Zerion API interprets DeFi positions at the protocol level, showing you deposits in Aave or liquidity in Uniswap as distinct positions.

SIM provides the underlying token balances and transaction data. But it currently doesn't automatically aggregate these into protocol-specific positions.

Chain Support

Zerion API supports major chains:

• All major EVM chains (Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, BNB, and more)—balances, transactions, DeFi positions, and NFTs
• Solana—balances and transaction history 
• Testnet support via header configuration

Dune SIM API offers broader chain coverage:

• 60+ blockchain networks
• Includes all major EVM chains and Solana
• Wide coverage but with a focus on token and transaction data rather than protocol-specific positions

If you need robust DeFi position tracking, Zerion is currently the stronger choice. If you need coverage across many emerging chains for basic balance and transaction data, SIM's 60+ chains provide more breadth.

Developer Experience

Now lets compare the experienece of using Zerion API and Dune's SIM.

API Design

Zerion API uses RESTful endpoints organized by resource:

• Wallet-centric: /v1/wallets/{address}/portfolio
• Position-specific: /v1/wallets/{address}/positions/
• Transaction queries: /v1/wallets/{address}/transactions/
• Rich filtering and pagination
• Standardized JSON response format

Dune SIM API provides RESTful endpoints for blockchain primitives:

• Balance queries: /balances
• Activity feeds: /activity
• Transaction history: /transactions
• Token info: /token-info
• Simple JSON responses with metadata

Additionally, both Zerion API and Dune SIM offer webhooks to subscribe to new transactions for any address. Zerion offers subscriptions to fully interpreted transactions in the same format that you get in its transaction history. Dune lets you choose between getting raw transactions, interpreted activity (e.g. “deposit”), and balance changes. 

Both APIs are well-documented and straightforward to integrate. Zerion's API is explicitly designed around wallet UI needs, while SIM provides more granular access to blockchain primitives. Both use standard API key authentication.

Data Normalization

Zerion API provides extensive normalization:

• Unified schema across EVM and Solana
• Position types categorized (wallet, deposited, borrowed, locked, staked)
• Consistent fungible representation across chains
• Application metadata (DApp names, icons, contract methods)

Dune SIM API offers:

• Normalized multichain token data
• Enriched metadata including logos and decimals
• Real-time pricing across all tokens
• Decoded transaction operations

For teams building cross-chain wallets, Zerion's unified schema between EVM and Solana simplifies development.

SIM's normalization is strong for EVM chains but focuses on foundational data rather than protocol-level positions.

Pricing

Zerion API pricing is customized based on the number of API calls:

• Free tier with up to 2k calls per day and 10 RPS
• Paid plans, starting from $149/month for up to 250k requests per month
• Enterprise pricing scales with RPS and feature usage

In Zerion’s model, a single API call can fetch data (e.g. balances or transactions) across all supported chains. This makes it easy to predict costs. 

Dune SIM API offers transparent tiered sage-based pricing via Compute Units (CUs):

• Free tier available for development with up to 1 million CUs and 5 RPS
• Custom enterprise plans, starting from $250/month

Different Dune endpoints consume different numbers of CUs. Additionally, endpoints consume different numbers of CUs, depending on the number of chains used in the request (e.g. 1 CU per chain for Balances). 

For startups and developers, both Zerion and Dune offer enough free calls to build an MVP. Zerion's pricing model is ideal for companies ready to scale production applications. 

Use Cases and When to Choose Each

Choose Zerion API When:

• Building consumer wallets: Zerion powers wallets like OpenSea's trading interface and provides the complete data layer needed for wallet UIs—balances, positions, transactions, and portfolio analytics in one API.
• DeFi position tracking matters: If you need to show users their deposits in Aave, liquidity in Uniswap, or staked positions across protocols, Zerion's DeFi position tracking (8,000+ protocols) is purpose-built for this.
• Solana + EVM coverage: Zerion offers unified API access to both Solana and EVM chains with consistent DeFi position support—a rare combination.
• You need proven scale: Companies like OpenSea have shipped production features using Zerion API at high scale.
• Portfolio and PnL analytics: Features like portfolio charts, PnL calculations, and position distribution come built-in.

Choose Dune SIM API When:

• Maximum chain coverage: If your application needs to support emerging chains beyond the major networks, Dune SIM's 60+ chain coverage provides broader reach.
• Data analysis workflows: SIM is rooted in Dune's analytics platform, making it ideal if you're also running analytical queries or dashboards on Dune.
• Token holder analysis: The token holders endpoint provides insights into token distribution that's not available in Zerion API.
• Foundation for custom logic: If you prefer to build your own position interpretation layer on top of raw balance and transaction data, SIM provides clean primitives.

Integration Effort

Zerion's pre-aggregated data—portfolio, positions, and transactions—reduces integration time for teams wanting to ship fast. Enterprise customers receive dedicated support.

SIM's granular endpoints offer more flexibility for teams who want full control over data interpretation. You'll need additional logic if protocol-level position aggregation matters.

Making Your Decision

Zerion API is the stronger choice for consumer-facing wallet applications, portfolio trackers, and DeFi platforms where protocol-specific position tracking, Solana support, and enterprise scale matter. Its pre-aggregated data and wallet-first API design reduce time-to-market for common wallet features.

Dune SIM API excels when you need broad chain coverage (60+ networks), want to integrate with Dune's analytics ecosystem, or prefer building custom position logic on top of blockchain primitives. Its transparent pricing and free tier make it accessible for experimentation.

Your decision should be guided by whether you value depth of DeFi coverage and pre-aggregated positions (Zerion) or breadth of chain support and analytical integration (Dune SIM).

Ready to get started? Create free Zerion API keys to see if it fits your use case.