UUPS vs Beacon proxy pattern

Question

I am delving into UUPS(Universal Upgradeable Proxy Standard) and Beacon proxy patterns.

I believe they serve distinct purposes, but I am unsure about the right use cases for each.

It seems that UUPS operates more independently than Beacon. However, Beacon utilizes its factory to create multiple proxy contracts with a single logic.

Could you please enlighten me on this?

Answer 1

Consider the diagram.

The BeaconProxy is just the first part of the BeaconPattern. The BeaconProxy itself is:

• not upgradeable
• does not store the implementation address

This is a crucial difference compared to UUPS. In the BeaconPattern, the implementation address is stored in another contract — the IBeacon. This approach makes possible to upgrade the implementation address for all BeaconProxies (for common IBeacon) with a single transaction. With UUPS, if you update the implementation, you must update every UUPS proxy contract.

Answer 2

UUPS is used when you need only one single upgradable contract. For example if you think you'll need to change the logic of a contract in the future, then you can make it a UUPS.

A beacon is used when you need multiple upgradable contracts, all with the same logic. For example if you need to deploy a lot of tokens that follow the same logic, and you want to make them all upgradable, then you can use a Beacon proxy. You can think of it like an upgradable version of the Clones pattern.