Comparative Analysis of Permissioned Blockchains: Cosmos, Hyperledger Fabric, Quorum, and XRPL

The permissioned blockchain model encompasses many layers of customization, so care is needed to avoid performance bottlenecks, programmability limitations, lack of privacy mechanisms, and insufficient interoperability. Considering the large number of solutions available today for developing permissioned blockchains, choosing the one that better fits the requirements of the target scenario is often a challenging task. Aiming to assist researchers, developers, and other professionals in the decision process, this work presents a comparative analysis of prominent open-source permissioned blockchain platforms, highlighting the main characteristics and differences that may drive this choice. Our work focuses mainly on indicating (un)favorable scenarios for each solution, an aspect that, to the best of our knowledge, has not been extensively explored in previous research. Namely, the blockchains hereby covered are Cosmos, Hyperledger Fabric, Quorum (Hyperledger Besu and GoQuorum), and XRP Ledger (XRPL). They are analyzed based on the characteristics of their consensus algorithms, support for smart contracts, capability of tokenizing tangible assets, interoperability with other systems, privacy mechanisms, as well as their transaction throughput and latency.