Hello,
Iam trying to connect my dApp to Algorand’s Testnet network for development, I started by Sandbox however it took some time to fast-catchup the real network(about 30 minutes), and when restarting it I thinked that it saved some downloads and data somewhere and it will catchup just from the last saved point, but it started downloading everything again, and that means I have to wait every time about 30 minutes when starting my computer before doing anything, so is there a way to avoid that and to save state in Sandbox ? if not what can I do as alternative, is there some third party APIs that offer the same service ?
Thank you.
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If you just need access to Algorand Testnet and not specifically running your own local testnet node, I’d use the free API from Nodely.io: QuickStart | Nodely
Both their free Testnet and Mainnet API’s are amazing and many small dApps in the ecosystem relies on them (until they outgrow in terms of traffic and run their owns).
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Yep - but it depends a bit on your use case. A sandbox might still be the preferred way to go if you’re developing a smart contract though. But for a lot of other use-cases or just trying out some things, the public testnet is actually just as fine and saves some hassle.
You can use an explorer like Dappflow: Dappflow | Algorand Developer Suite or Pera Explorer to browse Testnet: https://testnet.explorer.perawallet.app/
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Can you explain please ?
Well the sandbox is an environment that you can control and use in your favour to battle test whatever you’re developing. You can destroy the sandbox state every time and re-run whatever you want to do before deploying it on testnet (where every change continues to live on). Plus it should come packed with some easy to use debugging tools.
Having read your previous comment again, I think you’re developing on the sandbox connected with up-to-date testnet data, that’s why it’s loading so long. You should figure if you need that data or if you can simply run sandbox as a private network and use mock data to build whatever you want.
If you have a dApp that’s not that advanced or just want to play around with some quick stuff / token creation, different type of transactions etc. Testnet should work fine. If you want to build something bigger and want to battle test it, you might want to prefer the private network using the sandbox. Before switching it over to testnet (which needs to catchup every time)
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Thank you I think I understand you now, and I think that nodelay will be perfect for my use case.
Yes Iam using Sandbox with last up to date catchup because I have to interact with real-like Algorand blockchain: my dApp use Pera Wallet to sign transactions so Sandbox should have blocks where dispencer funded my Pera account, otherwise transactions will fail.
Also I don’t think that mistakes and errors on my smart contracts will be a problem since I can update or replace them easily in Testnet.
Thank you again @NFNomad for your help.
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