Ethereum client software snapshot — 27 October 2026
This comparison combines the supplied execution-client research (merge-01) and consensus-client research (merge-02), both dated 2026-10-27. It covers their selected five clients per layer; it does not claim a market-share ranking. “Newest stable” means the release selected by that research, excluding drafts and prereleases. Dates are publication dates in UTC. Links identify the underlying pages; /latest and branch links can change after this snapshot. Selected pages were spot-checked for this write-up; this was not a fresh audit of every source.
Currency and release context. Subtracting the table's publication dates from 27 October gives release ages of one to five calendar days: execution releases are dated 23 or 26 October, and consensus releases 22 or 23 October. These are very recent selected releases, but release age alone does not establish deployment or adoption. The calculation uses the publication records linked in the table. Merge-02 reports that all five consensus items checked draft: false and prerelease: false; Lighthouse's newer-looking v8.4.0-rc.0 was excluded as a prerelease.
Much of the activity is coordinated around the Hoodi testnet schedule. Geth postpones Amsterdam and also changes snap/2 selection and DUP/SWAP interpreter dispatch; Erigon postpones the Hoodi fork and planned 200-million gas-limit increase while fixing Caplin state, cache, reorganization and validator-vote handling; Reth removes Amsterdam from Hoodi without database changes. Sources: Geth notes, Erigon notes, Reth notes.
The other execution updates emphasize security and correctness. Nethermind packages October out-of-band .NET security updates and runtime 10.0.14 without Nethermind code, database, configuration, consensus or fork-schedule changes. Besu removes eMudhra root certificates from Docker trust stores, caps eth_getProof at 1,024 storage keys and fixes Osaka MODEXP gas-cost saturation for large declared lengths. Sources: Nethermind notes, Besu notes.
All five consensus releases unschedule Hoodi's Gloas/Glamsterdam activation. Lighthouse gives the former deadline as 26 October 2026, 17:42:48 UTC; Teku and Lodestar give epoch 132352. Upgrade urgency is client-specific: Lighthouse says mainnet users need not upgrade; Prysm says mainnet users already on v7.3.0 need not; Teku makes the update optional outside Hoodi; Nimbus rates it low-urgency outside Hoodi. Lodestar calls its update critical for all users, also refreshing Node.js after the eMudhra CA compromise and requiring Node.js 24.22.1 or newer, including an operator-managed update for source builds. Sources: Lighthouse, Prysm, Teku, Nimbus, Lodestar.
Variety. Counting the sourced language cells gives six main languages overall: Go, C#, Java, Rust, Nim and TypeScript. Execution spans four; consensus spans five, with a different language for each selected consensus client. The maintainer cells also show a range of teams, companies and a maintainers group, with weaker evidence for Nimbus explicitly identified. This is a comparison of implementation and attribution, not a measure of independent code, organisational control or network market share. The license cells show Apache-2.0 and MIT/Apache-2.0 choices alongside GPL/LGPL-family terms; Geth's executable/library distinction prevents reducing its licensing to one unqualified label. These comparisons derive from the linked table cells.
Disagreements and evidence limits. Neither merge reports a missing item; their client sets do not overlap, so they offer no independent cross-check of the same client's fields. The following qualifications remain material:
- Nethermind's README license section and file SPDX header support LGPL-3.0-only, while GitHub repository metadata reports GPL-3.0. The table follows the project/file evidence and preserves the conflict.
- Nimbus's repository license detector reports
NOASSERTION, whereas its README explicitly offers MIT or Apache-2.0 at the user's option. The detector result is not treated as the project's license. The supplied research did not establish a maintainer statement beyond status-im repository ownership.
- Prysm's metadata uses
GPL-3.0, a deprecated SPDX identifier. Its precise -only versus -or-later form was not established. Erigon likewise has only the unsuffixed LGPL-3.0 metadata value in the supplied evidence. Neither suffix is guessed.
- Merge-02 had only repository-owner evidence for Lodestar's maintainer and metadata for its language/license. The spot-checked README explicitly attributes development to ChainSafe Systems and describes TypeScript; its architecture section states Apache-2.0 for the monorepository while warning that packages have their own licenses. This strengthens, rather than contradicts, those entries.
- Merge-02 calls every consensus update a Hoodi-driven patch “not a feature release,” yet also records Nimbus feature additions. Nimbus's release notes support multiple payload-builder URLs and new REST endpoints, including getProposerPreferences, getStatePtc and getProposerLookahead. TOML users must change the builder URL setting to a list. Hoodi motivation and feature content coexist; the blanket description is too broad.
- Merge-02 flags Teku's
Consensys-Incorporated repository path as unusual. Its 26.10.2 release page was accessible during the spot check; the cited path is retained. A different repository location was not established.
Some evidence is release-pinned (notably Geth's headers, Reth's manifest and Lighthouse's README/license); other evidence is mutable repository metadata or branch documentation. License suffixes and Nimbus's explicit maintenance attribution remain unresolved as stated above. No missing precision has been supplied by inference.
IMD #398answered · 2 KB
IMD #1646answered · 4.6 KB
IMD #1511answered · 2.2 KB
IMD #1814answered · 2 KB
IMD #1470answered · 3.2 KB
IMD #1120answered · 1.7 KB
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IMD #1979answered · 8.4 KB
IMD #1604