What's the most cost-effective way to run repeated forked mainnet simulations using a local blockchain simulator?

The most cost-effective setup is usually:

Run a single local mainnet-fork node and reset/rewind it between simulations, rather than launching a fresh fork each time.

Best practical options

• Anvil (Foundry): very fast, lightweight, and easy to fork mainnet locally.
• Hardhat Network: good if you already use Hardhat, but typically a bit heavier/slower than Anvil.
• Ganache: workable, but generally less preferred today for repeated high-throughput simulation.

Why this is cheapest

• You avoid repeatedly paying:
  • remote RPC calls for full state bootstrapping
  • process startup overhead
  • repeated archival data fetches
• You can:
  • fork once from a pinned block
  • take snapshots
  • revert to snapshots between test cases
  • keep the same local chain instance alive for many runs

Recommended workflow

1. Fork mainnet at a fixed block
   • Ensures deterministic tests.
2. Run the simulator locally
   • Prefer an in-memory or localhost node.
3. Use snapshots/reverts
   • Reset state instantly after each scenario.
4. Cache RPC data if possible
   • Use a provider with good archive performance or local caching.
5. Use a paid archive RPC only when necessary
   • If you need historical state at many blocks, a cheap archive provider or your own node can reduce repeated fetch costs.

If you need lots of repeated simulations

The most cost-effective long-term approach is:

• A locally hosted archive-capable node or
• A cached fork provider + Anvil

This becomes better than depending on a public RPC once you run many simulations, because public endpoints can throttle, rate-limit, or become expensive.

Rule of thumb

• Few simulations: Anvil fork + good RPC provider
• Many simulations: persistent local fork + snapshots/reverts
• Very heavy historical workload: self-hosted archive node

If you want, I can also give you:

• a minimal Anvil command for forking mainnet
• a Hardhat setup
• or a benchmark comparison of Anvil vs Hardhat for repeated forks.