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If you've tried to catch a good entry on a new Solana token lately, you've probably felt it—by the time you click “swap,” the price has already doubled. That’s not bad luck. That’s automation.
By 2025, most of the action on Solana DEXs happens without human hands. Bots track listings, read pool changes, scan for price gaps, and execute trades in milliseconds. It’s fast, competitive, and getting smarter every month.
But here’s the part many traders miss: having a trading bot isn’t enough. What matters is how it’s built and what it runs on. You can copy the best strategy, but if your bot uses slow infrastructure or outdated data, it simply won’t land the trade in time.
In this guide, we’ll look at what kinds of bots dominate Solana in 2025—from snipers and arbitrage bots to execution tools like TWAP. Then we’ll walk through how to build your own. The goal isn’t just to automate trades—it’s to do it with the kind of speed and control that actually makes a difference.
Let’s get into it.
At their core, these bots are scripts or systems that monitor the blockchain, detect specific signals (like a new pool or a price gap), and trigger pre-defined actions (like a swap or a cancel/replace on an orderbook). The logic can be simple or advanced, but what really matters is reaction time and execution reliability.
These are built to buy tokens the moment they become tradable, usually right after liquidity is added. They monitor for events like InitializePool or AddLiquidity instructions on AMM programs (like Raydium or Orca). Once detected, they send a swap transaction immediately, aiming to get in before the price spikes.
A good sniper bot doesn’t just react quickly—it:
If you’re using a public RPC and polling every few seconds, you’re not sniping. You’re watching others do it.
If you're looking for a deeper dive into sniper bots specifically, we’ve already covered that in detail, including how to build and optimize one for real-time token launches.
Read the full guide →
These bots look for price differences between DEXs—say, SOL/USDC is $98 on Orca but $98.80 on Raydium. The bot buys on one and sells on the other, ideally in the same transaction.
The challenge? Those price gaps don’t last. When the market moves, every arbitrage bot sees it, and the fastest one wins.
To compete, you need:
Many modern bots also simulate the trade first (via simulateTransaction) to avoid losing gas on bad routes.
On Solana’s order book DEXs like OpenBook or Phoenix, some bots place both buy and sell orders near the current market price, adjusting them constantly. Their goal is to earn the spread while managing inventory risk.
These bots require:
The difference between a profitable market maker and one that bleeds is often how quickly they cancel stale quotes.
These aren’t racing for the first slot—they’re slicing big orders into smaller chunks and executing over time.
A TWAP bot might break a 100,000 USDC buy into 100 chunks over an hour. The goal: minimize slippage and avoid moving the market.
To do this well, the bot needs:
Most of these bots still use aggregators like Jupiter to route trades, but execution logic (timing, size, pacing) is handled off-chain.
Before building your own bot, it’s worth seeing what’s already out there. Most bots today promise fast trades and easy sniping—and they work fine when things are quiet.
But the moment real competition kicks in, their limits show: shared RPCs, no validator access, no slot timing. You’re fast—but not fast enough.
Here’s a quick look at the most popular Solana bots in 2025.
Don’t let RPC slow you down.
Build bots on low-latency Solana nodes—tuned for speed, not just uptime.
GMGN is the bot that gets thrown around in every sniper chat. It's slick, Telegram-based, and built around AI-driven triggers. You tell it how aggressive to be, and it hunts new tokens based on liquidity and volume. For sniping meme coins and chasing volatility, it works—up to a point.
The main issue? It still relies on public RPCs. That means, during real traffic—like a token launch on Raydium or a sudden spike on Jupiter—GMGN often sees the move a little too late. And in Solana time, “a little too late” is enough for the price to move 3x. The logic might be smart, but the pipeline is crowded. No private relay, no validator awareness, no ShredStream.
It’s great for casual use, but if you’re competing with pro-level bots, GMGN becomes more of a tracker than an executor.
BullX markets itself as the all-in-one hub: sniping, wallet tracking, alerts, trends, even whale monitoring. It supports Solana, Ethereum, and BNB, which sounds great on paper. You get access to a “Pump Vision Terminal” and can set up sniper triggers in minutes.
But with that broad feature set comes a tradeoff: latency. BullX isn’t built for speed—it’s built for coverage. It does a lot of things moderately well, but nothing at the level of precision you need for high-frequency trading.
For Solana specifically, it doesn’t leverage any native infra advantages. No private RPC, no slot sync, no OFR. The sniper feature might hit something if the listing is quiet, but during high-congestion launches, it’s consistently behind the curve.
It’s a strong choice for multi-chain trend followers or passive holders. Not the tool you use when milliseconds matter.
NOVA’s big advantage is speed without overcomplication. It runs entirely through Telegram, has decent automation settings, and doesn’t try to overwhelm you with dashboards. You get sniper mode, wallet management, and basic execution logic—and it’s all fast to set up.
The execution engine feels faster than average. Some users claim NOVA lands early buys more often than the bigger bots. That may be due to leaner code or fewer background tasks, or just cleaner Solana integration. But even here, the same ceiling applies: the infrastructure is still public.
You don’t get access to priority fees, you can’t plug into ShredStream, and you’re not routing directly to validators. It’s a quick bot, but it doesn’t have a fastlane. For its simplicity, it’s one of the better options out there, but its limits show up under pressure.
Axiom is built around user control and safety. It’s non-custodial, gives you trading rewards, and lets you connect wallets directly in a browser. The interface is clean, and the one-click strategies are beginner-friendly.
But speed was never its focus. It doesn’t offer instant snipe functionality, doesn’t integrate with relay networks, and isn’t designed for reacting to micro-moves or slot-level trades. It’s safe, measured, and fine for treasury management or DCA, not for competing on speed.
Axiom makes sense for long-term users or DAOs. Just not for trading bots that need to compete in real-time.
Photon strips things down to the basics. You get a lightweight Solana-only bot with a web interface, portfolio view, and some simple execution tools. No Telegram, no AI, no alerts—just a clean interface that lets you swap tokens or DCA without friction.
It’s probably the most beginner-friendly bot on this list, but also the least flexible. There’s no automation in the trading sense, no real customization, and no access to Solana’s advanced data infrastructure.
If you're new to Solana and just want something that feels less like a terminal window and more like a mobile app, Photon delivers. But for anything beyond basic interaction, it quickly runs out of headroom.
Most ready-made bots are built to be simple and convenient. That’s fine for casual use, but when the network gets crowded, they start to miss trades.
In the end, it’s not about having a “secret strategy.” What really matters is how your bot connects to the network, how quickly it gets data, and how reliably it can send transactions.
So let’s move on to the practical part: how to build your own Solana bot with more control, more speed, and better execution.
Not all bots are the same. Before you write a single line of code, decide what you're building:
The logic, tooling, and infrastructure will all depend on this. Don’t build a “do-it-all” bot. Start narrow.
Most Solana bots in 2025 are written in TypeScript or Rust. TypeScript is easier to start with—thanks to libraries like @solana/web3.js, Jito-ts, and shyft.
Rust gives you more low-level control and performance, especially if you’re building a validator-adjacent bot or want full control over memory and latency.
For a middle ground, many use TypeScript for bot logic + plug into fast Rust-based backends or infrastructure.
You’ll also need:
This is where most bots fall apart.
If your bot is reading pool changes, swap instructions, or token listings from a public RPC, you're already late. You’re getting filtered, rate-limited, and de-prioritized during congestion.
To compete, use dedicated RPC Fast endpoints—tuned for low-latency access with slot sync, Geyser plugins, and even validator co-location. This is especially critical for snipers and arbitrage bots.
Key RPC features to use:
Forget polling every 500ms. Your bot needs to subscribe to relevant data and act as soon as the event hits.
For example:
And keep your processing async and batched—don’t block on-chain reactions with extra logic or DB writes.
A fast bot isn't just about sending transactions quickly—it's about sending them into the right slot, at the right time.
Solana runs on a continuous stream of slots (~400ms), and when congestion hits, only transactions with the right priority fee + timing combo make it in.
You’ll want to:
This is where running on validator-level RPC Fast infra gives you an edge. You get access to the actual timing and propagation path, not the delayed view from public nodes.
Every trade your bot sends should go through this cycle:
You can use batching (e.g. Jupiter’s computeBudgetProgram) to pack more into a single slot. And always log the response with confirmations, slot, and error status.
Don’t treat your bot like a black box. Add basic observability:
This helps you tune logic, catch RPC issues early, and avoid silent failures.
Solana’s devnet is fine for syntax, but not for behavior.
To test your bot:
Bots that work perfectly in isolation often break under real speed stress. Always test in the wild.
Solana trading in 2025 is no longer about who has the best idea—it’s about who gets there first.
If you’re serious about building a bot that can compete when the network is moving fast, infrastructure is everything. From real-time data streams to slot-aware execution, the setup behind your code matters more than ever.
At RPC Fast, we’ve helped dozens of trading teams build and scale bots that run where it counts—close to validators, with clean latency metrics and full control over slot timing.
Want to get closer to the block?
Reach out — we’ll help you set up a dedicated Solana environment that’s actually built for trading bots.
