zkSync Era vs. Polygon zkEVM: Side-By-Side Comparison

zkSync Era, launched by the blockchain research and engineering company Matter Labs, has been in development for many years. Matter Labs released zkSync 1.0 (now known as zkSync Lite) in June 2020 and then released zkSync 2.0 in the fourth quarter of 2022. 

Polygon zkEVM was developed and released by Ethereum scaling company Polygon, which began its scaling journey with its proof-of-stake sidechain. Polygon zkEVM effectively integrates the development of Polygon Hermez and breakthroughs in technology originating from Polygon Zero.

Similarities: 

The code for zkSync Era is licensed under the MIT/Apache 2.0 license, while Polygon zkEVM follows the AGPL V3 license. Both zkSync Era and Polygon zkEVM support account abstraction, although in different ways.

In terms of security, both chains' contracts currently have no time locks, allowing for instant upgrades. This is mainly to allow for timely upgrades or repairs in the event of any errors in the contracts, as both are still in their early stages. However, Polygon zkEVM has a security committee that requires four out of seven signers to enable any upgrades, while zkSync Era currently operates without a security committee but plans to implement such a mechanism in the future.

Differences: 

zkSync Era and Polygon zkEVM are fundamentally different. zkSync Era is EVM-compatible, while Polygon zkEVM is EVM-equivalent.

zkSync Era uses its LLVM compiler, while Polygon zkEVM is closer to EVM and does not use a compiler. zkSync Era aims to optimize proof generation by using their custom VM, rather than focusing on EVM-equivalence.

Polygon zkEVM combines a unique efficiency proof consensus mechanism with a state machine cluster to improve the efficiency of verifiers. In terms of data availability, zkSync Era only publishes state differences without publishing transaction inputs, providing data compression and seamless integration with zkPorter based on StarkWare's Volition model, although zkSync has made adjustments to "strictly focus on decentralization." In comparison, Polygon zkEVM uses a hybrid model (Validium or Volition), where the validity proof is stored on-chain while some data is stored on-chain or off-chain.

Since the launch of zkSync Era and Polygon zkEVM, both have achieved good results. As of now, zkSync Era has attracted over 141 million USD in bridged assets, while Polygon zkEVM has attracted around 2.63 million USD in bridged assets.

On Chain Details

As of now (April 2023), there is a huge difference in the amount of Total Value Locked (TVL) between both layer 2. zkSync is currently having more assets locked on its blockchain over US$ 170 Million in value. Its assets comprises mainly of Ether, USDC, and MUTE.

On the other hand, polygon zkEVM has a lower amount of TVL, about US$ 2.9 Million. However, compare to zkSync, the crypto assets that are locked on its platform are much more diverse, which mainly includes Ether, USDC, USDT, and MATIC.

Will there be another token issued out by these 2 projects? The answer for now is: Nope.

• Matter Labs CEO, Alex Gluchowski, has clarified that zkSync Era won't be issuing or airdropping any new tokens. 
• Polygon team also has clarified that zkEVM will not have its own token, and most likely be relying on Polygon's own native token MATIC for future purposes such as staking and voting.

What are your thoughts on these 2 projects and which technology do you prefer more? Let us know in the comment section.

Reference

• https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/zksync-era-vs-polygon-zkevm
• https://dune.com/21shares_research/zkevm-comparison-zksync-era-vs-polygon-hermez
• https://www.bsc.news/post/polygon-zksync-scroll-zkevm-wars-spill-over-onto-twitter
• https://www.odaily.news/post/5186294
• https://www.iangreer.io/zkevm/