Metaplex Core vs Token Metadata vs cNFTs: Solana NFT Standards

Launching an NFT collection on Solana starts with a choice most creators don't know they're making: which NFT standard to use. It decides how much minting costs, what features your NFTs can have, and which tools support them. Almost all Solana NFTs use a Metaplex standard, and today there are three to choose from.

Metaplex Core

Core is Metaplex's newest NFT standard, and the default choice for new collections. Each NFT is a single account, which makes it much cheaper to mint than the older standard and lighter on the network.

Core also has a plugin system: optional features you attach to NFTs or whole collections, such as:

• Royalties that marketplaces must respect.
• Freeze and transfer rules, useful for staking or soulbound items.
• Attributes stored on-chain, which programs can read and update (handy for games).

For drops, Core has its own Core Candy Machine, with guards for allowlists, mint limits, start times and prices.

Token Metadata

Token Metadata is the original standard that most older Solana collections use. Each NFT is a token plus several accounts for its metadata, so minting costs noticeably more than Core.

It's still the right choice when you need something only it supports, such as editions (numbered prints of one master) or compatibility with an existing collection. It's also the standard that stores metadata for fungible tokens.

Compressed NFTs (Bubblegum)

Compressed NFTs (cNFTs), made with Metaplex's Bubblegum program, don't use a separate account for each NFT. Instead, their data is stored in a Merkle tree, with only a small fingerprint on-chain. That makes minting extraordinarily cheap: at the time of writing, around a hundredth of a cent's worth of SOL per NFT, so minting a million costs far less than minting a thousand regular NFTs.

The trade-off is that apps read cNFTs through indexers (the DAS API offered by RPC providers such as Helius) rather than directly from accounts. That's well supported today by wallets and marketplaces.

cNFTs are ideal for:

• Loyalty programs, badges and rewards sent to many users.
• Event tickets and POAPs.
• Game items in large numbers.
• Airdrops to a whole community.

Bubblegum v2 also works with Core collections, so you can combine the two.

How to choose

If you're…	Use
Launching a new PFP or art collection	Metaplex Core
Minting thousands or millions of items	Compressed NFTs
Extending an existing Token Metadata collection	Token Metadata
Needing numbered editions of one artwork	Token Metadata
Building a game with on-chain item stats	Core (or cNFTs at large scale)

Beyond the standard

The standard is only the start. A successful collection also needs a mint site that stays up when everyone mints at once, artwork and metadata that marketplaces display correctly, and utility that gives people a reason to hold, such as token-gated access, staking or perks.

Many collections launch alongside a fungible token; if that's your plan, read SPL Token vs Token-2022 too.

Build it with us

We build Solana NFT systems end to end, from generative artwork and Core or compressed mints to mint sites, staking and token-gating. See our NFT development service.