Ethereum is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system which have smart contracts. Ether is a token whose blockchain is generated by the Ethereum platform. The Ether token can be transferred between accounts and use mining nodes for mathematical calculation for example algorithms. The Ethereum platform provides a decentralized Ethereum virtual machine’s (EVM) instruction set.
Let’s discuss what is the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin is nothing more than a currency where Ethereum is a ledger technology that companies are using to build new programs. Both of these technologies operate on the blockchain. Smart contracts also known as a cryptocontracts can be encoded on any blockchain, but Ethereum is mostly used since it gives unlimited processing capability.
The Hyperledger Fabric is a private blockchain framework implementation and hosted by The Linux Foundation. This project is an umbrella project of open-source blockchains and related tools, started in December 2015. This leger also hosts smart contracts called “chaincode” that comprise the application logic of the system. The chaincode runs on the peers and creates transactions. The Hyperledger does not refer to any specific technology or tool; rather it refers to a project where multiple teams are collaborating to develop open-source and distributed ledger technology (DLT).
Hyperledger Fabric is a ready to use blockchain framework which can be deployed by enterprises/businesses to build distributed consensus-based applications which use smart contracts. This blockchain is designed to support pluggable implementations of components delivering high degrees of confidentiality, resilience, and scalability. This technology is a modular architecture and you can replace or add any component (module) without affecting the rest of the system. The advantages of modular programming are that less code has to be written. Programs can be designed more easily because a small team deals with only a small part of the entire code.
Ethereum can be either public or private without any permissions whereas Hyperledger is a private permission network. This means on Ethereum anyone can participate in the network at any time. Hyperledger has a predefined community of participants and access is restricted only to them. You need to have permission to join the network. Ethereum works on the mechanism of mining based on the Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm. All the nodes have to agree upon a common ledger and all of them have access to all entries ever recorded. Hyperledger allows nodes to choose between No-op (no consensus needed) and an agreement protocol (PBFT) whereby two or more parties can agree on a key in such a way that both influence the outcome. Hyperledger has fine-grained control over consensus and restricted access to transactions which results in improved performance scalability and privacy.
Conclusion
Ethereum’s powerful smart contracts engine makes it a generic platform for literally any kind of application. It is totally transparent and permissionless and comes at the cost of performance scalability and privacy.
Hyperledger Fabric is a Blockchain-Platform as the database is based on a blockchain data structure and the consensus is built between participants of a distributed network. Fabric is using a less decentralized approach compared to Bitcoin or Ethereum. Hyperledger is using a more centralized approach to cope with industry requirements and more modular and flexible approach to allow the user to adapt to the use case. There will always be use cases which require a full decentralization and in these cases, Etherum could be a suitable solution.
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