Best for: Anyone who wants to understand what a Solana transaction or wallet actually did, in plain language, without creating an account.
Speed9.0
Token data8.8
Readability9.7
Developer tools9.1
What we like
- +Plain-language transaction summaries and AI explanations
- +Oldest-first history, slot and time filters, activity heatmaps
- +Spam filtering for junk tokens, NFTs and transactions
- +Free, no signup, wallet connection optional
What could be better
- −Young product; open-source release still only planned
- −No documented CSV export for tax work
- −AI summaries are helpful but can simplify edge cases
Most Solana explorers show you what happened in the language of the runtime: instructions, inner instructions, token account deltas. The Helius Orb Solana explorer tries to tell you what happened in the language of a person: a short sentence along the lines of “swapped SOL for USDC” instead of six nested instructions. We used Orb daily since shortly after launch, alongside Solscan and the official explorer, and this review covers what the pages look like, which features are genuinely new, and where it still falls short.
What is Orb, the Helius Solana explorer?
Orb is a free block explorer for Solana built by Helius, launched on 29 October 2025 at orbmarkets.io. It covers transactions, wallets, tokens, programs, blocks and validators, and it runs on Helius’s archival system.
Helius is best known as an RPC and data API provider, and Orb is built on its own infrastructure: the Orb documentation describes an archival system on bare-metal servers, and a custom RPC method, getTransactionsForAddress, that makes history queries such as “oldest first” practical. That is the technical reason Orb can do things other explorers find slow, like jumping to the very first transaction a wallet ever made.
The site also answers at orb.helius.dev. Orb’s FAQ says it is free to use, requires no signup, and treats wallet connection as optional.
From XRAY to Orb: the successor story
Orb is the successor to XRAY, Helius’s earlier open-source explorer. The old XRAY addresses now send you straight to Orb.
XRAY is Helius's open-source Solana explorer, with its code published at github.com/helius-labs/xray.
Helius launches Orb at orbmarkets.io, with AI explanations, spam filters, heatmaps and oldest-first history.
Our check: xray.helius.xyz and xray.helius.dev both redirect to orbmarkets.io.
Helius's roadmap lists releasing Orb as open source under the Apache 2.0 licence. Not confirmed done at the time of writing.
If you searched for the XRAY Solana explorer because an old bookmark or tutorial pointed there, Orb is where you will end up. The XRAY repository is still on GitHub and not archived, but we found no formal deprecation notice, so the redirect is the practical answer.
A tour of the Orb interface
Orb’s interface is minimal: one search bar with search history, and result pages split into tabs with little branding. The emphasis is on text you can read, not tables you have to decode.
Transaction page
Paste a signature and Orb leads with a plain-language description of what the transaction did, built from Helius’s parsed events. Below that come the familiar details: status, fee, slot, time, signers, token movements, and each instruction with its own breakdown. An AI explanation option can summarise the transaction further; Helius says it integrates Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini for this. For a swap, the summary is usually the fastest way to confirm “what went in, what came out”. For anything unusual, scroll down and read the instructions yourself; our transaction explorer guide shows how.
Wallet page
A wallet page shows balances and a transaction history list written in readable lines rather than raw program calls. Three controls make it stand out:
- Show oldest first reverses the history so you can start from the wallet’s first transaction.
- Slot and time filters narrow history to a date range, handy for “what did I do in March?”.
- Spam filters hide unverified tokens, junk NFTs and spam transactions, which cleans up wallets flooded with airdropped scam tokens.
A calendar-style heatmap shows activity density by day and month, so you can see at a glance when a wallet was busy. Our wallet explorer guide covers what to look for in a wallet’s history.
Token, program and network pages
Token pages cover supply and the mint, freeze and update authorities, and Orb also offers token swapping for connected wallets. Program pages show program history, the IDL, verification status and repository structure for verified programs. The network stats page lists SOL price, a live block feed, TPS, validator count, client distribution, node versions, confirmation stats and epoch information. Orb also has a devnet mode.
Plain-language history
Parsed events and optional AI explanations turn instructions into sentences you can act on.
Oldest first, filtered
Reverse search, slot and time filters, spam filtering and heatmaps make long wallet histories manageable.
Orb Solana explorer features compared with XRAY and Solscan
Orb’s distinctive features are readable history and history tooling. It matches the basics of other explorers and adds a few things none of the big ones combine.
| Feature | Orb | Solscan |
|---|---|---|
| Plain-language tx summary | Yes, plus AI | Decoded actions |
| Oldest-first history | Yes | Not a headline feature |
| Spam filter | Yes, documented | Not a headline feature |
| Activity heatmap | Yes | Not documented |
| Token holders ranking | Basic | Holders tab |
| CSV export | Not documented | Yes, from 7 Jul 2021 |
| Signup required | No | No for browsing |
The comparison reflects what each product documents at the time of writing. Solscan’s full picture is in our Solscan review, and developers who need custom RPC or devnet-first work should also read our review of the official Solana Explorer.
Speed, accuracy and mobile
Orb feels quick on wallet and transaction pages, including deep history, thanks to Helius’s archival backend. Raw data is as accurate as any explorer’s; the summaries are an interpretation on top of it.
That distinction matters. A plain-language line is generated from parsed events, and an AI explanation is a model’s reading of the transaction. Both are right most of the time for common actions like swaps, transfers and staking. For unusual programs, multi-step arbitrage or anything involving a large amount, check the instruction list and token balance changes yourself, or open the same signature in a second explorer or our own lookup tool.
Watch out: an AI summary cannot tell you whether a token is legitimate. Scam tokens often use familiar names. Always compare the mint address with a trusted source such as our list of verified token mint addresses.
On mobile, Orb is one of the friendliest explorers we tested. Helius built it as mobile-friendly, and in practice readable one-line history entries fit a phone screen far better than wide instruction tables.
Orb for developers and researchers
Orb is not only a beginner tool. Its program pages, devnet mode and history filters make it a practical second explorer for developers, and its data comes from the same getTransactionsForAddress method Helius offers to API customers.
On a program page, the IDL view lists instructions and account types, and the verification status tells you whether the deployed code matches a public repository, the same verified-builds system the Solana docs describe. Our program explorer guide explains how to interpret an unverified result. Block pages break a slot down into its transactions, programs, rewards and compute units, which helps when you want to see how busy a block was at a given moment.
For investigations, the combination of oldest-first sorting and time filters is the real draw. Tracing where a wallet’s first SOL came from is a two-click job: open the wallet, flip the order, and read the first entries. On a standard RPC node, doing the same means paging backwards through getSignaturesForAddress up to 1,000 signatures at a time, which gets slow for busy wallets. Orb also offers pages for exploring mint, freeze and update authorities, useful when you want to know who can still change a token.
Limits: where Orb falls short
Orb’s weak spots are exports, depth of token analytics and its youth. None are deal-breakers, but they decide whether it can be your only explorer.
- No documented CSV export. For tax spreadsheets, use Solscan’s export or the RPC route in our tax and CSV guide.
- Lighter holder analytics. Solscan’s Holders tab remains the quicker way to judge supply concentration.
- Not yet open source. The Apache 2.0 release is on the roadmap, not delivered, while XRAY’s older code is public.
- Single provider. Orb depends on Helius infrastructure. If it is having a bad day, see our explorer down guide for fallbacks.
Developers who want the same history data in their own apps can look at Helius’s APIs; our Solana explorer API comparison sets them against free RPC.
Who should use Orb?
Orb suits people who want to understand activity rather than just look it up: newcomers, wallet owners reviewing their history, support teams and researchers tracing a wallet from its first transaction.
Beginners get the most immediate value, because a readable sentence beats a list of instructions. Power users benefit from oldest-first history, time filters and heatmaps. Tax users and token analysts should pair Orb with Solscan, and program developers will still want the official explorer’s custom RPC and verified-build tab. See our best Solana explorers ranking for 2026 for how the three fit together.
Verdict: 9.2 out of 10
Orb scores 9.2 because it solves the problem most explorers ignore: making Solana activity understandable. Plain-language transactions, spam filtering, oldest-first history and heatmaps are a real step forward, and it is free with no signup. It stops short of Solscan’s 9.4 on exports and token analytics, and it still has to deliver its open-source promise. If you last used XRAY, the move to Orb is an upgrade.
By the Solscanner research deskUpdated · Review methodology