{"id":15527,"date":"2025-12-01T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hederav2stg.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/querying-data-on-hedera-sdk-vs-mirror-node-rest-api\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T17:53:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T17:53:16","slug":"querying-data-on-hedera-sdk-vs-mirror-node-rest-api","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedera.com\/blog\/querying-data-on-hedera-sdk-vs-mirror-node-rest-api\/","title":{"rendered":"Querying Data on Hedera: SDK vs Mirror Node REST API"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

When you are building applications on Hedera, a key action you will need to do is querying entity data<\/strong>, such as account balances or transaction history.<\/p>\n

Developers have two main ways to query network data:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    Using the Hiero SDKs<\/a>, which interact with the consensus nodes<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    [Recommended]<\/strong> Using the Mirror Node REST API<\/a>, which provides read access to historical and current data<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Both options work, but they serve different purposes. Let\u2019s look at how each works and why the Mirror Node REST API is the preferred method for production applications<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    Option 1: Querying Data with the Hiero SDK<\/h4>\n

    The Hiero SDKs provide direct access to Hedera\u2019s consensus nodes. You can use queries such as AccountBalanceQuery or AccountInfoQuery to check balances or retrieve account details.<\/p>\n

    Here is an example in JavaScript:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    \n


    \n \"code<\/p>\n

    \n
    <\/div>\n
    <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
    import { Client, AccountBalanceQuery } from \"@hiero-ledger\/sdk\";\n\nconst client = Client.forTestnet().setOperator(process.env.MY_ACCOUNT_ID, process.env.MY_PRIVATE_KEY);\n\nconst balance = await new AccountBalanceQuery()\n  .setAccountId(\"0.0.800\")\n  .execute(client);\n\nconsole.log(`Account balance: ${balance.hbars.toString()}`);\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    This type of query goes directly to a consensus node, which processes and returns the latest balance available from that node\u2019s state.<\/p>\n
    Why SDK queries are not ideal<\/h4>\n