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Nodely

Making API calls at least x5 faster

The TCP/DNS latency problem

Are you making thousands of back-end requests per hour and running into latency or timeout issues ?

Most back-end scripts and SDKs use short lived HTTP/1.1 requests to RPC node. As most Linux / Docker / K8S setups do not cache external DNS responses this slows down each API request by adding :

  • extra DNS resolutions for A and AAAA records
  • extra TCP handshake

Using HTTP/2 or HTTP/1.1 connection pooling eliminates the extra steps and allows you to make thousands of requests per second easily. Custom REST clients can be easily modified to use connection pooling.

Local API proxy

Consider running local reverse proxy to speed up band-end clients using Algorand SDK.

Proxy will speed things up by:

  • Making DNS resolution only once for thousands of API calls
  • Keeping TCP connections alive and reusing them

Proxy will also increase availability by:

  • Proactively monitoring Cloudflare and non-cloudflare Nodely endpoints
  • Falling back to closest non-cloudflare region in case of global CF outage

Huge speedup, less CPU usage, faster responses, no DNS timeouts.

Caddy reverse proxy using Docker

Caddy config file

Create a file named Caddyfile with the following contents:

# rev 1.0 @ 2025-08-23 - initial release


(log) {
    log {
        output stdout
        format json
    }
}


(nodely-rev) {
    health_uri /health
    health_interval 5s
    health_timeout 2s
    health_status 200


    lb_try_duration 1000ms
    lb_retries 3
    lb_retry_match {
        method "GET" "HEAD" "OPTIONS" "POST"
    }
    lb_policy first
    lb_try_interval 50ms
    transport http {
      dial_timeout            1500ms
      response_header_timeout 5500ms
      keepalive 30s
      max_conns_per_host 50
    }
}


# Node API endpoint (http://localhost:8801)
:8801 {
    bind 127.0.0.1
    import log
    reverse_proxy /* {
        to https://mainnet-api.4160.nodely.io https://mainnet-api.algonode.network
        header_up Host mainnet-api.4160.nodely.io
        import nodely-rev
    }
}


# Indexer API endpoint  (http://localhost:8802)
:8802 {
    bind 127.0.0.1
    import log
    reverse_proxy /* {
        to https://mainnet-idx.4160.nodely.io https://mainnet-idx.algonode.network
        header_up Host mainnet-idx.4160.nodely.io
        import nodely-rev
    }
}

Run the rev-proxy using Docker compose

Create a docker-compose.yaml file with the following contents:

services:
  nodelyproxy:
    container_name: nodelyproxy
    image: caddy
    volumes:
      - type: bind
        source: ./Caddyfile
        target: /etc/caddy/Caddyfile
    restart: always
    deploy:
        resources:
            limits:
              memory:  "1G"
    environment:
      - 'GOMEMLIMIT=512MiB'
      - 'GOMAXPROCS=2'
    network_mode: host

You can modify the compose file to run in a separate docker network and map the ports in some other way. Running docker compose up -d will start rev-proxy on ports 8801 and 8802.

Using the rev-proxy

You can than point your client code to use

  • http://localhost:8801 for Algod (node) API
  • http://localhost:8802 for Indexer API

curl http://localhost:8802/health

Hints:

  • You can remove the “bind 127.0.0.1” directive to make the proxy listen on your public/external IP address
  • You can include this service as a sidecart to your K8S deployments or docker-compose setups

Docker compose sidecart example

services:
  nodelyproxy:
    container_name: nodelyproxy
    image: caddy
    volumes:
      - type: bind
        source: ./Caddyfile
        target: /etc/caddy/Caddyfile
    restart: always
    deploy:
        resources:
            limits:
              memory:  "1G"
    environment:
      - 'GOMEMLIMIT=512MiB'
      - 'GOMAXPROCS=2'
    networks:
      - example_network


  client:
    image: curlimages/curl:latest
    container_name: client_curl
    networks:
      - example_network
    depends_on:
      - nodelyproxy
    command: >
       sh -c "
       while true; do
         echo '--- Making indexer request at: ' && date &&
         curl -s http://nodelyproxy:8802/health &&
         echo ''
         sleep 1
       done
       "


networks:
  example_network: