Uniswap: decentralised exchanges rating breakdown
v2 · v3 · v4, 48 chains
It is the benchmark because its core contracts have never been drained in eight years of holding billions — a record no other venue on this page can claim — and because it is the only one whose liquidity is deep enough on enough chains that a large trade rarely has to leave. What it is not is cheap: at 0.1762% realised it costs three and a half times Aerodrome, which is the price of that depth being spread across forty-eight deployments and a tier mix weighted toward 0.30% pools.
It is the benchmark because its core contracts have never been drained in eight years of holding billions — a record no other venue on this page can claim — and because it is the only one whose liquidity is deep enough on enough chains that a large trade rarely has to leave.
How the score is built
Each criterion is scored 0–10 and weighted. The median column is the middle score across every entry in this ranking, so a row reads as a position rather than a number.
| Criterion | What we measured | Weight | Score | Category median | Rank | Weighted gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Has it been drained, and did anyone get paid back? | none core contract exploits · sourced · 2026-08-27 | 30% | 9 | 5 | 1 of 9 | +1.20 |
| What traders actually paid | 0.1762 what traders actually paid · computed · 2026-08-27 · source | 25% | 5 | 7 | 6 of 9 | -0.50 |
| Depth and volume | $49.95bn 30-day volume · sourced · 2026-08-27 · source$3.46bn total value locked · sourced · 2026-08-27 · source | 25% | 10 | 7 | 1 of 9 | +0.75 |
| Chains and assets | 48 chains deployed · sourced · 2026-08-27 · source | 12% | 10 | 6 | 1 of 9 | +0.48 |
| How hard the capital works | 14.4× per 30 days capital turnover · computed · 2026-08-27 | 8% | 8 | 7 | 3 of 9 | +0.08 |
Measured 27 August 2026 · weights and method · decided by has it been drained, and did anyone get paid back?, worth +1.20 points against the median
Has it been drained, and did anyone get paid back?: 9/10
Contract exploits with dates, amounts and — the question every other comparison skips — whether users were actually made whole. A DEX is a set of contracts holding pooled money, so this is the first question, not the fifth. Audit count is recorded but never scored on its own: Balancer V2 was among the most audited contract systems in DeFi and lost $128m to a rounding error in November 2025.
Scored 9 of 10 against a category median of 5, which places it 1st of 9 among decentralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 30% weight that is 1.20 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 9, the worst 1.
What traders actually paid: 5/10
Computed by us, not read off a fee-tier page: thirty days of protocol fees divided by thirty days of volume, per venue, from public data. That single division exposes what routing, tier mix and pool design really cost, and it disagrees with the advertised tiers everywhere. It is not the whole cost of a trade — slippage and gas sit on top — but it is the part every comparison misstates.
Scored 5 of 10 against a category median of 7, which places it 6th of 9 among decentralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 25% weight that is 0.50 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 1.
Depth and volume: 10/10
Total value locked and thirty-day volume, both from public data at a stated timestamp. Depth is what decides slippage on a real trade, and volume is what proves the depth is usable rather than parked.
Scored 10 of 10 against a category median of 7, which places it 1st of 9 among decentralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 25% weight that is 0.75 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 2.
Chains and assets: 10/10
The number of chains where the venue is actually deployed, weighted by whether volume genuinely flows there. A deployment on forty chains that trades on two is coverage on paper.
Scored 10 of 10 against a category median of 6, which places it 1st of 9 among decentralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 12% weight that is 0.48 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 2.
How hard the capital works: 8/10
Thirty-day volume divided by total value locked — how many times each dollar of liquidity turned over. Nobody publishes this, and it separates a venue whose pools are genuinely used from one sitting on idle incentive-farmed capital. It also predicts fee income per dollar of risk taken by liquidity providers.
Scored 8 of 10 against a category median of 7, which places it 3rd of 9 among decentralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 8% weight that is 0.08 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 3.
Its nearest neighbours in this ranking
| # | Entry | Has it been drained, and did anyone get paid back? | How it differs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | PancakeSwap | 7 | Behind by 2 on has it been drained, and did anyone get paid back?. |
| 3 | Aerodrome | 6 | Behind by 3 on has it been drained, and did anyone get paid back?. |
Questions about this score
What does trading on Uniswap actually cost?
+
0.1762% of volume, on our measurement — computed as thirty days of protocol fees divided by thirty days of volume, which captures the mix of pools traders really routed through. That is well above the 0.05% tier people quote and well below the 0.30% tier they quote just as often, because a venue is not one fee: it is hundreds of pools across several tiers, and your rate is set by which one your trade lands in. Gas and price impact sit on top of that number.
Can Uniswap freeze or change my liquidity position?
+
No. The v3 pool contracts are immutable: no admin key, no upgrade path, no pause. Governance can adjust protocol-level switches, but it cannot reach into a deployed pool and alter its terms or seize what is in it. The cost of that guarantee is symmetrical — if a bug were ever found in those contracts, nobody could patch them either. The response would be a new version and a migration of liquidity.