So the only useful guide I've found is by hackernoon and it is talking about ethereum blockchain explorer setup.
I've been in Bitcoin for several years and now working on my own project. I am looking to develop a blockchain explorer from scratch rather than using existing API (for my personal experience).
What would it really takes in terms of hardware, code requirements and costs?
As far as I understand I first need to setup a Bitcoin node, making sure I have enough storage capacity to handle all historical blocks and transactions (am I right?)
But what am I doing from there? how do I turn it into an database and making my own API?
Does anyone have any guide for it?
First, do you want it to run locally or access through internet?
To run an explorer like the blockchain.com API you need about 500GB of space, except of above code, you would need to make a database of all TXs so you can parse it quickly. Either code yourself in Python or hire a coder. You would probably land on 2000 USD to have a fast and secure explorer. A simple windows/unbuntu box is fine, your can run it on as little as a DELL R200 with 4GB of ram and an old Pentium CPU. Most critical is good bandwith for data transfer and fast SSD disk.
In terms on online server, amazon instances are pretty good (we run both an BTC and ETH explorer) which are accessed from anywhere in the world using RPC calls and runs 24/7. Cost is about 300 USD/month for the data transfer.
Good luck
/KX