Any developer knows that Web3 and a decentralized web look to be the next big steps in web development. However, to actually build dApps has long been a rather bothersome task. Compared to Web2 applications, which currently dominate the Internet, Web3 noticeably lacks developer-friendly tools and developer-centric middleware. You will likely already know that this is where Moralis, the premier blockchain middleware, comes in. Moralis supercharges your dApp development and allows you to prototype, develop, and deploy dApps in days rather than months. However, as the Web3 scene grows, more and more accomodating tools are becoming available for developers. One of the most widespread ecosystems for dApp development is the Truffle Suite. Naturally, you can easily use Truffle and the Truffle Suite with Moralis. However, what is Truffle Suite? 

In short, the Truffle Suite ecosystem consists of three different tools: Truffle, Ganache, and Drizzle. As these are popular tools, we will take this article to take a closer look at what Truffle Suite is and explore the entire ecosystem. Furthermore, if you find yourself looking to develop dApps, Truffle Suite is not the only valuable tool you can utilize. The number one development platform for dApps is Moralis. Returning readers will know how Moralis removes the greatest hurdle with dApp development, with its infinitely scalable backend infrastructure. This allows users to save resources and time, which is excellent for business. Moreover, Moralis also offers several useful tools, such as Speedy Nodes and support for Ganache. 

So, if you are interested in becoming a dApp developer, we highly recommend signing up with Moralis. Signing up is completely free, and it gives you access to a vast selection of development tools. By using Moralis, you’ll cut down your Web3 development process dramatically! It might look like magic – but it’s just Moralis.

What is Truffle Suite? 

Truffle Suite is an ecosystem for dApp development, and it essentially consists of three different parts. These three parts are Truffle, Ganache, and Drizzle. This is a well-established ecosystem utilized by a high number of developers. Furthermore, the goal of Truffle Suite is to ensure a more accessible development process. Let us take a closer look at the Truffle Suite’s components:

Truffle Suite Overview

• Truffle — Truffle is a development environment utilizing the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) as a basis. The slogan of Truffle is ”Smart Contracts Made Sweeter”, indicating that the environment specializes in smart contract development. This environment features a number of great functionalities that help dApp developers tremendously. 
• Ganache — Ganache is a tool to set up your own local Ethereum blockchain that you can use to deploy and test your smart contracts/dApps before launching them on an authentic chain. As such, Ganache enables developers to avoid paying unnecessary gas fees during the developing process.
• Drizzle — Drizzle is a collection of frontend libraries with a Redux store as its basis. With Drizzle, frontend development can become a lot more predictable and manageable. 

However, the descriptions above are just short overviews of each tool. So, let’s dive deeper into the Truffle Suite ecosystem and discover what we can do with each tool and what exactly they feature. We are going to follow the same structure, so let’s kick it off with Truffle. 

What is Truffle? 

Truffle is the development environment, asset pipeline, and testing framework of the Truffle Suite ecosystem. Truffle is a hugely popular development framework for Ethereum dApp development, and there is a large community behind the tool. Furthermore, Truffle is using the EVM as a basis, and one of its purposes is to make the development of smart contracts more straightforward and more accessible.

Truffle offers several different features: 

• Smart Contract Management — This means that Truffle helps manage the artifacts of all smart contracts utilized in your dApps. As Truffle takes care of this, you can focus on other parts of the development process. This further means that Truffle supports library linking, custom deployments, and more complex Ethereum dApps. 
• Automated Contract Testing — Another helpful feature of Truffle is that it supports automated contract testing. This means that you can bring your developer experience to the 21st century and construct automated tests for all your contracts. The main benefit of this is that you can shorten the development process of your smart contracts. 
• Scriptable Migration and Deployment — With Truffle, you can write deployment scripts that allow you to account for the fact that your dApps will change over time. This means that you can maintain your smart contracts far into the future and in the long term. 
• Network Management — Truffle helps you take care of your network by managing your artifacts, allowing you to focus your attention on other tasks.
• Interactive Console — Truffle features an interactive console that allows you to access all Truffle commands and contracts you have built. 

What is Ganache? – Set up a Local Ethereum Blockchain

Ganache is a tool that allows us to spin up our own local Ethereum blockchain. The blockchain can be utilized throughout all parts of the development process, making this tool highly useful. As we set up our local blockchain, Ganache allows us to deploy, develop and test all our dApps in a safe and deterministic environment. 

Ganache is available in two different versions, Ganache UI and a CLI called ganache-CLI. Furthermore, both these versions of Ganache are available on Linux, Mac, and Windows.

However, why do we need a local blockchain? Why can’t we use the Ethereum main/testnets? There are two reasons why we should utilize a local blockchain when developing our applications. The first reason is that we can save money, and the second one is that we can save time. 

Uploading contracts to an authentic chain such as the Ethereum mainnet costs money in the form of gas fees. This can be a problem since the fees can be extraordinarily high and unpredictable. As a result, it can become very costly to upload contracts that are still not working correctly. 

Furthermore, making transactions on the authentic chains takes time, which we want to avoid when developing dApps. So, this can be solved by spinning up a local blockchain with Ganache as we can deploy smart contracts instantly. This means that Ganache can help us save both time and money, something that is highly appreciated when developing a business. 

However, this only scratches the surface of what Ganache is. If you are interested in learning more about Ganache and how to use it, we recommend reading our previous article explaining how Ganache can be used with Moralis. 

What is Drizzle?

The last part of the Truffle Suite ecosystem is Drizzle. Drizzle is a collection of frontend libraries with a Redux store at its core. With this tool, Truffle Suite offers a better and easier way for frontend development. One of the things that make Drizzle great is that it is of a modular design. This means that we can add and remove any features that we do not want to include. 

The core package is called ”drizzle”, and it is responsible for handling contract and account instantiation. This means that the base package offers, among other things, additional contract functionalities. 

Here are some of the main features of Drizzle: 

• Stores — Drizzle allows you to use an already existing Redux store or generate one of your own. All you need to do is import the sagas and reducers, and you are ready to get going. 
• Library of Components — Drizzle keeps a library of React components commonly used to get dApp functionality. 
• Reactive Datastore — As we mentioned earlier, the core of Drizzle is a Redux store. Furthermore, Drizzle takes care of synchronizing transactions, contract data, etc. 
• Extends Web3 — Drizzle extends Web3 contracts meaning that you get access to underlying methods and properties from the documentation.  

The conclusion on Drizzle is that it is a collection of libraries with the Redux store at the basis. It makes dApp UI development more accessible with a modular design allowing for a high degree of customizability. 

However, this and the previous two sections are just the basics of the Truffle Suite ecosystem, and there is a lot more to read about. If you are interested in learning more about Truffle Suite, we recommend visiting their official website. Here you will find further information on Truffle, Ganache, and Drizzle. 

Moralis & Truffle Suite for Ethereum Development

Web3 development can be somewhat tricky, especially when it comes to backend development. This is where the development experience differs the most from traditional Web2 development. However, this is exactly what Moralis takes care of since the platform provides you with a fully managed backend infrastructure. This means that you, as a developer, can focus on developing your frontend and core user experience. 

So, when developing dApps with Moralis, you can direct your full attention to your application’s frontend. This is where Truffle Suite comes into the picture. When developing with Moralis, a great option is to utilize Truffle to develop smart contracts and Ganache to set up your local chain.

Truffle helps you get going with developing smart contracts as it provides you with all the proper tools such as smart contract managing, testing, and an interactive console. This means that Moralis entirely takes care of the backend, and you can use Truffle in the developing process of the rest of your dApps. 

Another reason to use Moralis is that we can easily integrate Ganache into our projects. It only requires a few steps to create a connection between your own local blockchain and all your Moralis projects. This means that you can set up a connection between your servers for your dApps so that they know everything that happens on your local Ethereum blockchain. The reason for doing so is to enable us to test our Moralis applications thoroughly in a deterministic environment before deploying them to an authentic chain. 

However, suppose you are interested in learning more about connecting your Moralis projects to your local blockchain. In that case, we recommend the following video from the Moralis YouTube channel where Ivan on Tech takes you through the complete process: 

Truffle Suite Alternatives — Hardhat

The Truffle Suite ecosystem is great and offers some helpful tools for development. However, Truffle Suite is not the only network offering services enabling a more accessible development process. An honorable mention here is Hardhat.

Hardhat is – similarly to Truffle Suite – a development environment that features testing, compiling, and debugging Ethereum-based dApps. This means that Hardhat is a helpful tool to enable and make some of the tasks inherent to dApp development more accessible. Hardhat comes with a built-in Ethereum network, and the platform focuses on Solidity debugging. This makes Hardhat an ideal tool for developing smart contracts and Ethereum dApps. 

Furthermore, as Hardhat focuses on Solidity, some of the main features of this platform are Solidity stack traces and automatic error messages. However, these are just two features making the process of finding out where an application fails and how to solve this problem a whole lot easier. Along with focusing on debugging, Hardhat also features a vast selection of plugins. This makes the platform suitable for a high degree of customizability.

However, these are just some of the examples of why Hardhat is a contender for the Truffle Suite ecosystem. If you are interested in learning more about Hardhat, check out this article which is a full breakdown of Hardhat.  

What is Truffle Suite? — Summary

From a traditional perspective, dApp development has long been somewhat of a struggle. The absence of development tools was long a problem and created a demand for developer-friendly platforms. Although Moralis has come to revolutionize dApp development, there’s room for other tools as well. As interest in Web3 is exploding, we’ve seen many valuable tools being developed  one of which is Truffle Suite. 

The Truffle Suite is an ecosystem for Web3 development that consists of three different tools: Truffle, Ganache, and Drizzle. Truffle is a development environment, asset pipeline, and testing framework for developing smart contracts. Ganache allows you to set up a local Ethereum blockchain to test your dApps in a safe environment. As this is the case, Ganache can help developers save both money and time. Finally, Drizzle is a collection of libraries that makes frontend development more accessible. 

Furthermore, all the tools provided by the Truffle Suite ecosystem work great with Moralis. Moralis provides you with the backend infrastructure, Truffle helps with smart contract development, and Ganache supplies you with a local blockchain. This makes the marriage between Moralis and Truffle Suite a perfect match. 

Moreover, Moralis provides a selection of other great tools in addition to the infinitely scalable backend infrastructure. Some examples are that Moralis offers native support for IPFS, MetaMask, and cross-chain compatibility. Along with this, we also mentioned the Moralis’ Speedy Nodes, which now feature full WebSockets! 

If you are interested in becoming a dApp developer and utilize the convenient tools of Moralis, then feel free to sign up with Moralis today! Creating an account is entirely free, and you can begin developing right away.