Metrics & Monitoring

MEV-Boost exposes a Prometheus-compatible metrics endpoint for monitoring performance, relay behavior, and bid activity.

info

Prometheus metrics support was added in MEV-Boost v1.10.

Enabling Metrics

Start MEV-Boost with the -metrics flag:

./mev-boost -metrics -relay $YOUR_RELAY

By default, the metrics server listens on localhost:18551. To change the address:

./mev-boost -metrics -metrics-addr 0.0.0.0:9009 -relay $YOUR_RELAY

Systemd Example

[Service]
ExecStart=/home/mev-boost/bin/mev-boost \
    -mainnet \
    -relay-check \
    -metrics \
    -metrics-addr 127.0.0.1:18551 \
    -relay https://0xPUBKEY@relay.example.com

Verifying Metrics

Once running, you can verify the metrics endpoint:

curl http://localhost:18551/metrics

You should see Prometheus-formatted output with mevboost_ prefixed metrics.

Available Metrics

Request Latency

Metric	Type	Description
mevboost_get_header_latency_ms	Histogram	Latency of getHeader requests to relays (milliseconds).
mevboost_get_payload_latency_ms	Histogram	Latency of getPayload requests to relays (milliseconds).
mevboost_register_validator_latency_ms	Histogram	Latency of registerValidator requests to relays (milliseconds).

Bid Activity

Metric	Type	Description
mevboost_best_bid_value	Gauge	Value of the best bid received (in wei).
mevboost_bids_received_total	Counter	Total number of bids received from relays.
mevboost_no_bid_total	Counter	Total number of slots where no bid was received.

Relay Status

Metric	Type	Description
mevboost_relay_errors_total	Counter	Total number of errors from relay requests, labeled by relay and error type.

note

Metric names and labels may vary between versions. Check the /metrics endpoint output for the definitive list for your version.

Prometheus Configuration

Add MEV-Boost as a scrape target in your prometheus.yml:

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'mev-boost'
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:18551']
    scrape_interval: 15s

If you're already monitoring your consensus and execution clients, add MEV-Boost alongside them:

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'beacon-node'
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:5054']

  - job_name: 'execution-client'
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:6060']

  - job_name: 'mev-boost'
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:18551']

Grafana Dashboard

You can build a Grafana dashboard to visualize MEV-Boost metrics. Useful panels include:

• Bid values over time — Track mevboost_best_bid_value to see how bid values change across slots.
• Relay latency heatmap — Use mevboost_get_header_latency_ms histogram buckets to identify slow relays.
• Error rate by relay — Graph mevboost_relay_errors_total by relay label to spot unreliable relays.
• No-bid rate — Track mevboost_no_bid_total to understand how often fallback to local building occurs.

Example PromQL Queries

Average getHeader latency over the last hour:

rate(mevboost_get_header_latency_ms_sum[1h]) / rate(mevboost_get_header_latency_ms_count[1h])

Error rate per relay over the last 5 minutes:

rate(mevboost_relay_errors_total[5m])

Percentage of slots with no bid:

rate(mevboost_no_bid_total[1h]) / rate(mevboost_bids_received_total[1h] + mevboost_no_bid_total[1h]) * 100

Alerting Recommendations

Consider setting up alerts for:

Condition	Suggested Threshold	Why
MEV-Boost down	Metrics endpoint unreachable for >1 min	Validators will fall back to local block building.
High relay error rate	>50% errors for a single relay over 5 min	A relay may be degraded; consider removing it.
All relays returning no bids	No bids for >10 consecutive slots	Check relay connectivity and validator registration.
High getHeader latency	p99 >800ms	Bids may arrive too late, causing missed proposals.

Community Dashboards

• mevboost.org — Overview of relays and builders producing recent blocks.
• mevboost.pics — Charts and dashboards about the MEV-Boost ecosystem.
• Flashbots Relay Dashboard — Flashbots relay status and recent deliveries.