Pool vs solo mining: which should you pick?
Pool mining pays you small, steady amounts for the whole pool's work; solo mining pays whole blocks, rarely. How to choose between them.
How pool mining works
In pool mining every miner submits shares and the pool pays for everyone's work together. Under the proportional scheme (PROP), each block the pool finds is split across the round in proportion to the shares each miner contributed. Under PPS+, every accepted share is paid as it arrives, and a found block adds a small extra on top from its transaction fees. Either way, income arrives as many small, steady amounts. The reward scheme the pool runs and its fee are shown live on the pool statistics.
How solo mining works
Prefix your wallet address with "solo:" and you mine for whole blocks instead: you are paid only for blocks your own rigs find, and you receive the full block reward minus the pool fee, which is the same one pool mining pays. The trade is variance: long dry spells are normal, and a win pays everything at once.
How to decide
Open the solo mining calculator and enter your hashrate: it shows the median time to your first block and your odds over a chosen period. A practical rule: if the median time to a block is longer than you are comfortable waiting, mine in the pool; solo fits large rigs and patient miners. Both run on the same servers and ports.
Switching between them
Switching is instant: add or remove the "solo:" prefix in your miner's wallet field and restart the miner. Nothing else changes, and your address keeps its history on the dashboard.