Practical overview
When it fits
Use Fast Near when operating a NEAR read-service layer and you can supply chain data separately. It is especially relevant for view-call workloads or services focused on selected application accounts.
Who it is for
- Operators building a NEAR RPC service optimized for smart-contract view calls.
- Application teams that want to serve a selected subset of NEAR accounts from their own infrastructure.
- Developers choosing between Redis-backed in-memory storage and LMDB-backed storage for a read service.
Documented uses
- Serve view-method calls using a documented REST-style URL and GET or POST inputs.
- Load NEAR Lake state changes into Redis or LMDB.
- Limit loaded data to selected accounts or account patterns.
- Provide account information and access-key information through RPC routes.
Requirements & limits
- Redis is the documented default and provides in-memory storage; LMDB is available but explicitly labeled experimental.
- Fast Near does not sync with NEAR by itself, so a separate source such as NEAR Lake or near-state-indexer is needed.
- The repository documents npm, Yarn, and Docker startup approaches, alongside environment variables for storage and fallback RPC endpoints.
- The API supports GET query parameters and POST JSON or binary bodies for view calls.
- The project describes client-side caching and compatibility with HTTP-layer caching such as Nginx.
Check current requirements in the official documentation. Source-based guidance does not mean OpenViST has run or independently tested this project.
Load NEAR Lake state into Redis
Populate Fast Near's Redis storage with state changes from NEAR Lake.
Before you start
- A Fast Near checkout with its dependencies available.
- Redis storage; Redis is the documented default.
- NEAR Lake data, such as the documented near-lake-data-mainnet input.
Steps
Run the documented loader: node scripts/load-from-near-lake.js near-lake-data-mainnet --batch-size 50 --history-length 1 --dump-changes.
Use --help to review the loader's available options.
Expected outcome
The loader is configured to dump NEAR Lake state changes into the default Redis storage.
Guide limitations
- Fast Near does not synchronize with the NEAR network itself; this loader reads from NEAR Lake.
- The README does not make this loader command a complete server deployment procedure.
Restrict NEAR Lake data to selected accounts
Configure the loader command to include named accounts and a subaccount pattern.
Before you start
- A Fast Near checkout with its dependencies available.
- NEAR Lake data.
- The account names or patterns to include.
Steps
Run the loader with the documented include arguments: node scripts/load-from-near-lake.js near-lake-data-mainnet --include app1.near --include app2.near --include '*.superapp.near' --dump-changes.
Replace the example account names and pattern with the accounts relevant to the intended service.
Expected outcome
The documented command selects state for the two named accounts and subaccounts matching the superapp.near pattern for loading.
Guide limitations
- The README presents these as example account filters; it does not document a complete deployment or verify the resulting data.
- Fast Near still depends on an external data source rather than syncing the network itself.
Sources & review
Source record details
- Source availability
- Active
- Sources checked
- 17 October 2026
- Original website title
- vgrichina/fast-near · Official homepage title · retained in its source language
Related options
NEAR Lake — An external source from which Fast Near can load state changes; it is not the Fast Near RPC service itself.
near-state-indexer — A separate project identified as another source for data Fast Near needs.