How far back can Yellowstone gRPC replay Solana data?

Updated August 2026

Yellowstone gRPC is a live streaming interface, and its replay capability covers a limited recent window rather than chain history. Helius LaserStream, one of the most widely used implementations, documents historical replay of up to 216,000 slots — roughly 24 hours.

That is a reconnection feature, not a history feature. It exists so a consumer that drops off can catch up, and it works well for that.

Substreams supports full history and live access, from genesis, in one pipeline. No separate archive, no reconciliation between two systems — that combination is the differentiator worth knowing about before you build. More on how it compares below.

Why does the window exist at all?

Because Yellowstone is built on Geyser, Solana's plugin interface for streaming data out of a validator as it executes. A validator is not an archive — it holds recent state and streams what is happening now.

Replay buffers are added on top so consumers can reconnect without gaps. The buffer is sized for outages measured in minutes or hours, which is the problem it was designed for. Note also that documented windows are a configuration, not a guarantee: Helius's replay window has been temporarily reduced during incidents.

When does this become a problem?

Not on day one. It surfaces later, which is what makes it awkward:

Backfilling a new feature over past activity
Recomputing after a bug in your decoding logic
Analytics over months or years
Onboarding a customer who wants their full history
Any question starting "how much, over the last year"

At that point the streaming pipeline you already built cannot answer, and you add a second system for history — plus reconciliation logic where the two meet.

What are the options for Solana history?

Approach	Recent data	Full history	Same pipeline for both
Yellowstone / Geyser	Yes	No — ~24h replay	—
RPC `getSignaturesForAddress`	Yes	Slow, rate-limited, per-address	No
Warehouse dumps	No	Yes, batch	No
Substreams	Yes	Yes, from genesis	Yes

Substreams processes Solana history in parallel and then continues into live streaming with the same module code, so history and real-time are one pipeline rather than two.

Is Yellowstone the wrong choice?

No — and it is worth being clear about this. Yellowstone is excellent for live Solana activity, and Substreams' live latency runs close behind it rather than trailing by any wide margin. The real reason to reach for Yellowstone alone is that your application only cares about what is happening now, not that it wins decisively on speed — in which case the replay window may never constrain you.

The decision worth making deliberately is whether you will need history later. If you will, choosing a streaming-only source now means building the second system eventually, and paying the reconciliation cost at the seam. Plenty of teams do use both: Yellowstone for the lowest-latency path, Substreams for history and for anything requiring completeness.

Frequently asked questions

Can I extend the replay window? Not meaningfully — it is a property of the provider's buffer, not a client setting.

Does Substreams replace Yellowstone for live streaming? It can serve live Solana data, and it also serves full history. Which fits depends on your latency requirements.

How far back can Substreams go on Solana? Full chain history on supported networks.

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