The blockchain ecosystem is overflowing with Layer-1 networks, but few truly solve the issues of scalability, speed, and developer experience. That’s where Sui and Aptos step in two cutting-edge blockchains born from Meta’s abandoned Diem project and powered by the innovative Move programming language. Built by former Meta engineers, both platforms promise a new era of performance, flexibility, and user-first design. In this comparison, we’ll explore how Sui and Aptos stack up, what makes them alike, and where they’re carving their own paths in the ever-evolving world of Web3.
Shared DNA: How Sui and Aptos Started with Meta
The Diem Project Legacy
Meta’s Diem project, initially known as Libra, was an ambitious endeavor to create a global digital currency. Despite its potential, regulatory hurdles led to its discontinuation. However, the project’s technological advancements, particularly the Move programming language, laid the foundation for future innovations.
Sui and Aptos have inherited this legacy, building upon Diem’s groundwork to develop their unique blockchain solutions.
Founders from Meta’s Blockchain Division
The teams behind Sui and Aptos consist of former Meta employees who played pivotal roles in the Diem project.
- Sui (Mysten Labs): Founded by Evan Cheng, Sam Blackshear, Adeniyi Abiodun, and George Danezis, Mysten Labs brings together expertise in blockchain research and development.
- Aptos (Aptos Labs): Led by Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, Aptos Labs focuses on delivering a scalable and secure blockchain infrastructure.
Built on Move: The Common Language
Both Sui and Aptos utilize the Move programming language, originally developed for the Diem project. Move is designed to offer enhanced security and flexibility for smart contract development.
Its resource-oriented approach ensures that digital assets are handled safely, reducing common vulnerabilities found in other smart contract languages.
While both platforms leverage Move, they have tailored it to their specific needs. Sui has developed its own version, known as Sui Move, to optimize for parallel execution and scalability
Exploring the Similarities Between Sui and Aptos
Sui and Aptos, often seen as rival Layer-1 blockchains, actually share a strong common foundation. Both are built using the Move programming language, pioneered at Meta, and both aim to solve long-standing problems in blockchain scalability, developer accessibility, and transaction speed. Their design philosophies, funding history, and developer-first focus reveal significant overlap in what they prioritize for the future of Web3 infrastructure.
Developer-Centric Designs
Sui and Aptos put developers at the heart of their ecosystem strategies, acknowledging that a thriving developer community is essential for long-term success.
- Sui offers a comprehensive software development kit (SDK) designed for frictionless integration across multiple platforms—from wallets to decentralized games. Its developer documentation is rich and interactive, offering tutorials, contract templates, and pre-built modules that simplify the development process.
- Aptos, on the other hand, has built an impressive suite of tools including the Aptos CLI for command-line interaction, the Move Prover for formal contract verification, and a code analyzer that helps developers catch errors early.
High-Throughput and Low Latency
When it comes to speed and efficiency, both Sui and Aptos shine as next-generation Layer-1 blockchains engineered for real-time performance.
- Sui’s architecture enables parallel execution, meaning transactions that don’t interact with the same objects can be processed simultaneously. This allows it to scale horizontally and achieve transaction speeds upwards of 297,000 TPS under controlled testing environments. In a live setting, it maintains consistently low latency with sub-second finality.
- Aptos employs a different technique but with similar goals: it uses Block-STM (Software Transactional Memory) to reorder and execute transactions in parallel, reaching over 160,000 TPS in benchmarking.
Move-Based Security and Asset Management
One of the strongest similarities between Sui and Aptos lies in their use of Move, a secure, resource-oriented programming language originally developed at Meta.
- Move was built with the idea of resources-as-assets, meaning each token, NFT, or digital object is treated as a unique entity that can’t be accidentally duplicated or lost.
- Both blockchains benefit from Move’s emphasis on safety, including strong static typing, memory safety, and protection against common smart contract vulnerabilities such as reentrancy, race conditions, and double-spending.
Focus on Modularity and Scalability
Sui and Aptos are built with future-proofing in mind, incorporating modular designs that can grow with the needs of the ecosystem.
- Aptos separates its core functions consensus, data storage, execution, and networking—allowing each to evolve independently without risking the stability of the network. This enables the Aptos team to implement upgrades and patches with minimal downtime.
- Sui’s architecture is centered on an object-based model, which doesn’t rely on global state but instead treats each piece of data as a discrete object with its own rules. This allows unrelated transactions to be processed in parallel and drastically increases the chain’s ability to scale.
Strong VC Backing and Ecosystem Funding
Capital fuels innovation and both Sui and Aptos have raised substantial funding from the biggest names in crypto venture capital.
- Sui secured $336 million in funding across its Series A and B rounds, with major contributions from a16z, Binance Labs, FTX Ventures, and Jump Crypto. This funding is being channeled into developer grants, research, and global ecosystem expansion.
- Aptos brought in $350 million in 2022 through two major funding rounds backed by a16z, Multicoin Capital, Tiger Global, and Coinbase Ventures.
Sui’s Technical Edge: Object-Centric and Parallel Execution
While Sui and Aptos share many foundations, Sui breaks away with a bold technical choice: it ditches the traditional account-based ledger system for an object-based architecture, enabling massive throughput without compromising decentralization or consistency.
Object-Based Data Model
At the core of Sui’s uniqueness is how it stores and manages data.
- Rather than tying transactions to accounts, Sui treats each asset as an object—an independent entity that can be owned, transferred, and mutated.
- This model allows validators to process multiple non-overlapping transactions in parallel, skipping the need to agree on every global state change.
- It also opens the door for more expressive and complex assets—like NFT-based identities, game characters, or upgradable smart devices—while maintaining fast execution and robust logic.
Narwhal and Tusk: Dual Consensus Protocol
Sui’s consensus mechanism is both innovative and practical, addressing the bottlenecks faced by monolithic consensus layers.
- Narwhal serves as the data availability layer. It organizes transactions using a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) to ensure all validators receive the same data quickly and reliably.
- Tusk acts as the consensus layer, building on Narwhal’s ordered data to finalize blocks using an asynchronous, zero-overhead protocol that’s resistant to Byzantine faults.
Scalability for Mass Web3 Apps
Sui was built with Web3 mass adoption in mind, and its scalability is a major enabler.
- Thanks to its parallel execution and stateless transaction model, Sui supports horizontally scalable infrastructure, where adding more validators increases throughput without complex sharding or layer-2 solutions.
- Developers can build apps that handle thousands of concurrent users with consistent performance, something that is still rare in today’s blockchain landscape.
- Combined with stable transaction costs and sub-second finality, Sui’s performance unlocks new categories of apps: AAA Web3 games, large NFT minting platforms, real-time social protocols, and more.
Looking to launch your own Layer-1 blockchain from scratch?
Aptos Under the Hood: Modular, Secure, and Battle-Tested
While many Layer-1 chains claim to solve the blockchain trilemma, Aptos takes a methodical approach that’s rooted in practical design, production-readiness, and developer empowerment. Its architecture is not just about speed—it’s about consistency, upgradability, and ensuring long-term developer and user trust. Let’s look under the hood and break down what really makes Aptos shine.
Block-STM and Parallel Execution
Aptos has reimagined how transactions should be processed by building Block-STM, a powerful execution engine that brings true parallelism to smart contract execution.
- Block-STM stands for Block Software Transactional Memory, a model that enables multiple transactions to execute simultaneously without conflicting with one another.
- Unlike sequential models, where one failed transaction can hold up a block, Block-STM dynamically detects conflicts and reorders transactions during execution. This results in better throughput and lower failure rates, especially during high-volume usage.
- Aptos’s team has benchmarked this engine to over 160,000 transactions per second (TPS) in test conditions, putting it at the frontier of blockchain speed metrics.
- This execution model allows DeFi apps, games, and high-interaction dApps to operate smoothly without bottlenecks—an essential trait for real-world usability.
AptosBFT Consensus
The consensus mechanism is where blockchain security and efficiency meet. Aptos takes inspiration from DiemBFT and improves it with its fourth-generation implementation: AptosBFTv4.
- AptosBFTv4 is a Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) protocol that enhances validator coordination and reduces unnecessary messaging between nodes.
- The protocol is asynchronous and deterministic, meaning blocks can be committed with fewer messages and faster turnaround time—enabling sub-second finality in most cases.
- Drawing upon research advancements like HotStuff and Jolteon, AptosBFTv4 introduces leader rotation and pipelining, ensuring liveness even in adverse network conditions.
Aptos’s Developer Toolkit
One of the most overlooked aspects of a blockchain platform’s success is the quality and usability of its development tools. Aptos delivers a highly developer-centric experience with a modern toolkit tailored for rapid iteration, safety, and ease of use.
- Devnet and Testnet: Aptos maintains public networks for testing and experimentation. Devnet is where early-stage features are introduced, while Testnet is more stable and mirrors mainnet conditions. These networks give developers confidence to test smart contracts under real-world scenarios.
- Aptos CLI (Command Line Interface): Offers developers powerful command-line tools to create accounts, deploy contracts, mint tokens, and run scripts—all with a few commands.
- Move Analyzer and Prover: Static analysis and formal verification tools ensure smart contracts are not only functional but secure. Move Prover mathematically proves contract correctness, a major leap in preventing exploits.
- Faucet API: Essential for accessing test tokens without friction, helping teams prototype faster without jumping through unnecessary hoops.
- Rich Documentation and Tutorials: From API references to beginner guides, Aptos provides resources that cater to developers of all skill levels.
Ecosystem Growth: Which One Is Winning the Builders?
Speed, scalability, and security are great—but they don’t mean much without a thriving ecosystem. The real metric for a blockchain’s success is whether developers, dApp founders, NFT creators, and DAOs are actually building on it. Let’s examine how Aptos and Sui are stacking up in terms of growth, developer activity, and real-world adoption.
Active Projects and Launches
Both Sui and Aptos have launched with significant momentum, onboarding projects across DeFi, NFTs, gaming, and even decentralized social media.
On Aptos:
- Cellana Finance is a decentralized exchange (DEX) optimizing capital efficiency through concentrated liquidity and innovative farming strategies.
- Chingari and Stan are two rising stars in SocialFi, blending short-form video and influencer monetization with Web3 incentives.
- Wapal NFT Marketplace offers no-code minting for creators, removing technical barriers for NFT onboarding.
On Sui:
- NAVI Protocol is a DeFi suite offering borrowing, lending, and liquid staking with support from the Sui Foundation.
- Bucket Protocol has introduced a native over-collateralized stablecoin on Sui, creating a foundational asset for the ecosystem.
- Games, NFT platforms, and unique object-based apps are rapidly expanding, with the Sui Explorer listing hundreds of active projects and verified collections.
Developer Incentives and Hackathons
Developer mindshare is often won with more than just great tech—it’s about opportunity, visibility, and support.
Aptos:
- Launched the Aptos Grant DAO, a transparent grant distribution mechanism supporting early-stage startups and developers.
- Hosted global hackathons in partnership with DoraHacks, Binance, and Gitcoin, awarding thousands of dollars in bounties and creating pipeline-ready teams for venture funding.
Sui:
- The Sui Foundation Grants Program supports ecosystem builders across verticals especially DeFi, tooling, gaming, and education.
- The Sui Overflow Hackathon reached a whopping $1 million in funding pool, attracting hundreds of participants worldwide. It not only funded projects but created massive buzz and user engagement.
Wallets, Explorers, and Tooling
Wallets and blockchain explorers are the gateways for user interaction and on-chain transparency. Here’s how each chain delivers on that front:
Aptos:
- Petra Wallet is Aptos Labs’ official browser extension wallet with support for NFTs, DeFi dApps, and custom tokens. It offers an intuitive UI, secure key management, and in-dApp integration.
- Aptos Explorer gives real-time insights into block production, transaction history, validator performance, and more. It’s a must-have tool for users and developers monitoring on-chain activity.
Sui:
- Sui Wallet is designed for simplicity and speed, supporting transaction history, NFT management, and object visualization, a unique feature enabled by Sui’s object model.
- Sui Explorer allows deep inspection into Sui’s unique transaction structure, object lifecycle, and dApp analytics. Developers can view how assets move and mutate across apps with full transparency.
How blockchain app factory can help with Layer-1 Blockchains
Blockchain App Factory offers end-to-end development and consulting services tailored for Layer-1 blockchain projects, helping businesses build highly scalable, secure, and performance-driven blockchain infrastructures from the ground up. With expertise in consensus mechanism design, smart contract development, tokenomics structuring, and ecosystem launch strategies, the team ensures your Layer-1 chain is optimized for real-world use cases across DeFi, NFTs, and enterprise applications. From architecting custom blockchain protocols to integrating robust developer tools, explorers, and wallets, Blockchain App Factory provides the technical depth and industry insight needed to launch and scale next-generation Layer-1 solutions with confidence.
Conclusion
Sui and Aptos represent a new era of Layer-1 blockchain innovation, combining high throughput, developer-friendly tools, and Move-based security to meet the demands of modern decentralized applications. While Aptos excels with its modular architecture and Block-STM engine, Sui stands out with its object-centric model and parallel execution capabilities. Their growing ecosystems, strong community backing, and robust toolkits make them compelling platforms for developers, enterprises, and investors alike. Whether you’re building a high-performance game, launching a DeFi protocol, or exploring NFTs, understanding the nuanced strengths of each platform can guide you toward the right blockchain foundation for your vision.
