Portal, Pipes SDK, and the Product Philosophy Behind SQD

By Dan, CPO at SQD

If we do our jobs right, then two years from now SQD will be the default indexing tool in Web3. Getting there requires technology, but it also requires discipline. It means being honest about trade-offs, building for developers first, and continually improving the way people access and use blockchain data.

This post walks through Portal, the new Pipes SDK, and the thinking behind both.

Quality is the one thing we do not compromise

There is an old rule in software. You can have something good, fast, or cheap. Pick two. As CPO, I try to make all three work together. It is not always realistic, but the one thing we never sacrifice is quality. The product has to work. It has to be reliable. It has to provide real value to the people who depend on it. That principle shapes every part of the Portal and Pipes SDK.

Portal upgrades how developers access data

Portal is the next stage of the SQD Network. It is a big upgrade in both architecture and developer experience. There are two core changes.

1. Data is now streamed

The old flow in indexing was simple. You send a request. You wait. You receive a response. Portal removes that model entirely. Instead, data is streamed. You do not wait for a response. You get continuous updates as they happen. This alone improves speed by an order of magnitude because the round trip is gone.

2. The query engine is rebuilt in Rust

We rewrote the query engine from scratch. It is now written in Rust and optimized for speed and stability. The difference between the old centralized gateway and the decentralized Portal network is huge. Developers will feel it immediately.

Pipes SDK: flexibility through composability

Portal handles raw data. But developers still need tools to shape that data into something useful. That is where Pipes SDK comes in. We already have the Squid SDK, and we will continue supporting it. Many customers rely on it daily. But as we built Portal, we saw clear ways to improve the developer experience.

Pipes is built around composability

Composability means you can take small pieces, connect them like pipes, and build the exact data flows your application requires. You can transform data, aggregate it, store it in any database, and plug it into any part of your system. Nothing forces you into a specific structure or pattern. Pipes SDK gives developers freedom to build the way they want.

Why does composability matter?

In Web3, composability is everything. It lets developers move faster, experiment more, and integrate without friction. Squid SDK is strong, but Pipes SDK is structured to give much more flexibility. You can embed it in different environments, use your preferred tools, and create pipelines that match your application logic. It is a more open, modular approach. And we will keep expanding it.

The road ahead

Portal and Pipes SDK are the foundation for the next stage of SQD. They make data faster to access, easier to use, and more flexible to integrate. They also reflect the core philosophy of the product: build for developers, and do not compromise on quality. We are only at the beginning of what the SQD Network will become. If we continue on this path, we believe the future of Web3 indexing will be built here.

We shall be adding a new Portal page to our website, as well as the release of Docs 2.0 soon - stay tuned!

Join our Telegram t.me/subsquid or X page at x.com/helloSQD for further updates.