This guide on blockchain architecture became my Rosetta Stone for this exact problem https://vteams.com/blog/blockchain-architecture/ . The article shows how different consensus mechanisms (PoW vs PoS vs DPoS) directly impact your gas costs and transaction finality times. Their breakdown of virtual machine differences helped me understand why Solana programs work differently than Ethereum smart contracts. What's invaluable is their architecture decision frameworkit helps you match project requirements to chain capabilities rather than just following hype. I avoided building on a mismatched chain thanks to their network topology explanations.