Choosing a Smart Account

Why Smart Accounts?

Smart accounts are the key to unlocking the best online user experience ever had-- enabling features that have never been possible with traditional EOAs (externally-owned-accounts) like session keys, granular permissions, different authentication methods like email and passkeys, and much more.

Beyond that, alchemy's Account Kit offers a simple & clean SDK to provide your users with top-tier ERC-4337 smart account features. With Account Kit's most powerful, most natively-supported account being Modular Account V2.

MAv2 is the most fully-featured and efficient smart account out there, allowing for limitless modular expansion. All the while the account is secured by extensive audits as well as a bug bounty on Cantina.

MAv2 also strives to be maximally gas-efficient, being the only account where runtime deployment breaks the sub-100k gas barrier, which is cheaper than one Uniswap swap. For more details around MAv2, and for more sweet benchmarks, check out the MAv2 overview!

Modular Account V2

MAv2 is a zero-compromise smart account designed from the ground up for maximal security, modularity, and gas-efficiency. MAv2 abides by ERC-6900, meaning if you have a use case, there's probably a module for it-- and if there isn't, the simple, straightforward module interface ensures building new innovative features is a walk in the park.

By default, MAv2 includes a fallback validation. This allows a zero-customization setup where the account's owner (which, technically, could be another account!) has full control over the account. The fallback validation signer, or the account's owner, can be swapped or the entire validation can be disabled entirely in favor of one or more other validations.

Validations are themselves modules that define an authorization scheme with granularly managed control over the account. You could use a WebAuthn validation to support passkeys or biometrics for example.

MAv2 also supports EIP-7702 out of the box, allowing EOAs to seamlessly turn into maximally expandable smart accounts.

Other Smart Accounts

While MAv2 is the recommended choice, Account Kit also supports other audited and gas-optimized ERC-4337 smart account implementations:

Light Account

Light Account is a minimalist ERC-4337 smart account optimized for low gas costs. It is based on Ethereum Foundation's SimpleAccount but adds key improvements like:

• Ownership transfers
• ERC-1271 signature validation

While Light Account is fully audited, it does not support advanced modular features like modules or session keys.

Multi-Owner Light Account

This account extends Light Account with support for multiple owners, allowing shared control over an account without needing a full modular setup.

Modular Account V1

Predecessor to Modular Account V2, this advanced account offers:

• ERC-6900 compatibility for custom extensibility
• Session keys
• Multisig plugin support
• Flexible ownership validation

Account features

Bring Your Own Smart Account

If you have your own ERC-4337-compatible smart account, you can integrate it with Account Kit.
See our guide on using a custom smart account.