Hi friends!
This article has a list of Solana NFT marketplaces I know of and my opinions on them. Maybe you can find something new here.
TL;DR
All of the Solana marketplaces I know of:
When I first got into NFTs, I didn’t really know much about Solana or Solana NFTs. Opensea was on the rise and all attention was on Ethereum. It still kinda is, but the Solana NFT ecosystem has been growing like crazy and the number of marketplaces has been exploding as well.
I wanted to list all of the Solana NFT marketplaces I know about and talk about my first impressions as well as pros and cons of each. Please take what I write with a grain of salt, I know a lot of other people who have had very different experiences with each of these platforms. There is a lot of both love and hate for each of these marketplaces, but I’m just going to share my opinions and experiences. You are free to disagree with me – let me know what you think in the comments. (These are not ranked in any particular order.)
Let’s dive in!
1. Magic Eden
Magic Eden has become one of the biggest and most mainstream marketplaces on Solana. Millions of transactions happen every day. It has a very big community on Twitter and discord, and was adopted very early as a big player in the Solana NFT game.
Pros: Good website design, easy to use. The Launchpad feature they offer is very attractive and easy to use for designers or people who want to launch an NFT collection with no prior experience. The launchpad feature gives creators all of the power the Magic Eden name holds to help launch and market their collection.
Cons: Unfortunately ME has lots of projects that are just rip-offs of popular projects like BAYC. Since it is an open platform for anyone to create on, there is a lot of garbage and plagiaristic content with not a lot of moderation/curation.
2. Solanart
I believe Solanart was one of the first, if not the very first Solana NFT marketplace. For a while it had a lot of Solana NFTs you couldn’t find anywhere else.
Pros: The price history feature for NFT collections is a good tool to look at how well the overall collection has performed over its lifetime. I haven’t seen any other platforms offer this feature for collections as a whole.
Cons: Smaller selection of NFTs compared to other marketplaces. There are quite a few NFT collections on Solanart that are not recognized across other Solana platforms, meaning you can’t sell them anywhere except Solanart.
3. Solsea
This one is my personal favorite, although I do have kind of a love-hate relationship with Solsea. I like Solsea because it’s where I have most of my NFTs listed. The name kinda says it all. This is the Solana version of Opensea. Or at least they were trying to be.
Pros: Very easy to mint your own NFTs and create collections with absolutely no coding experience. Very simple website layout. Dark/ light mode option for screen display. Option to hide/show NSFW content with the click of a button. Easy to have your collection featured on the homepage if you are going to have a live mint.
Cons: Because it is so easy to mint an NFT, there is the largest amount of garbage NFTs on Solana I’ve ever seen. Be cautious using this platform. The collection verification process can be hard if you don’t have a big following. There are a lot of imposter NFT collections on here that are not actually part of the actual collection, like Degenerate Ape Academy, etc.
4. Digital Eyes
This marketplace seems like it has been in the “beta launch phase” for forever. It keeps popping up that notice every time I visit the site, which doesn’t instill a lot of confidence given there are so many other marketplaces that are fully functional. I personally haven’t bought or sold anything on this marketplace.
Pros: Their “solo” NFT feature is reminiscent of the classic social media infinite scroll which I do really like because you never know what might pop up in that “feed” next. Which I think is part of the fun of NFTs.
Cons: Website layout for certain sections isn’t as smooth and simple to navigate as other platforms. The automatic NSFW filter is super buggy and most of the time hides content that isn’t NSFW which is annoying.
5. Holaplex
I recently just discovered Holaplex and I quite like it. Holaplex is primarily a 1/1 NFT marketplace and is extremely new. (to my knowledge, I believe it launched in 2022) This platform lets creators build out their own digital NFT storefront with different customization options where you can view all of an artist’s NFTs for sale.
Pros: Very new, which makes it easier to sift through NFTs because there aren’t as many. This is an auction-forward platform, as opposed to many other platforms that are only buy-now. The artist storefront feature is very nice if you are a creator because you get to have more control over your own space.
Cons: There aren’t that many artists on this platform because it is so new. There are already quite a few NFTs on Holaplex that are low quality trash. The listings section on the homepage shows NFTs that have a bid on them first, which can make it hard for anyone to find yours if no one has bid on it, which pushes it further down, which then makes it harder for someone to find it to bid on, which pushes it further down, and you get the picture.
6. Formfunction
This is another marketplace I only recently discovered, and I think it is pretty new. (correct me if I’m wrong in the comments) Formfunction is a curated platform that will soon give curation rights to the community through voting to determine which artists can list NFTs for sale. The curation aspect reminds me of Nifty Gateway or SuperRare, but for Solana. Pretty cool.
Pros: The curation aspect means less garbage NFTs to wade through, and a higher potential for NFTs to go up in value if the artist who created it has a big following. Very simple website design, even simpler than some other Solana marketplaces.
Cons: The curation aspect makes it harder for smaller artists to get their work on the platform since not just anyone can list NFTs. High prices. Could be hard to flip NFTs if that’s your game.
7. Exchange Art
Another new one I just discovered, although I think it has been around for a while. This platform is different from others in that its primary focus is to be an NFT exchange rather than a marketplace. Sellers can list any Solana NFT they own, to anyone, regardless if that collection is available on the marketplace. Interesting concept.
Pros: The idea of an NFT exchange is interesting and could be a great place to sell those unwanted NFTs that you’ve had for some time, if you can find a buyer. Essentially I think this could increase the value of dead NFT projects if people still find value in the art. You can still buy from regular collections like other marketplaces.
Cons: Clunky website design. All aspects of the platform could use some more thought/work. Everything seems like it was quickly thrown together. Lots of low quality NFTs that I personally would never pay money for.
Thanks for reading friends!
I hope you found something useful in this article.
