There are thousands of tokens across hundreds of DEXes each with its own separate pools and tiny liquidity.
This problem of fragmented liquidity gives rise to different prices and high slippage, especially when you’re making large volume trades.
Furthermore, it’s hard to manually compare the liquidity and rates of multiple DEXs to determine which one will give you the best price for a trade.
And this is where decentralised exchange (DEX) aggregators come in.
What are DEX aggregators?
DEX aggregators are liquidity search engines that aggregate liquidity from multiple DEXes and facilitate split trades in order to give you the best prices.
They help you trade more efficiently by offering you access to the deepest liquidity, lowest slippage and best exchange rates across multiple DEXs on different chains.
Using DEX aggregators, you’ll receive a better execution price than when you trade directly on a single DEX.
How does DEX aggregators work?
DEX aggregators instantly analyse thousands of quotes and fees across multiple DEXs to provide you with the best rates.
Below is a simplified illustration of how DEX aggregators work:
Select the tokens you want to swap.
The exchange DEX aggregator searches all the DEXs and finds the ones with liquidity for your trade, and compares liquidity depth, slippage, prices, and fees.
Then do some extremely complicated calculations in a matter of seconds to determine how best to split and route your trade for the best price.
And shows you the final rate and the liquidity sources it has selected to use for your trade.
You approve the transaction and let the protocol do its magic and settle your trade accordingly.
DEX aggregators save you time and money by optimising your trades for maximum efficiency.
In this post, I will be sharing with you the list of the best DEX aggregators that you can use to trade more efficiently.
Top 9 best DEX aggregators
These are some of the best DEX aggregators to optimise your trades for better rates. The list is in no particular order.
1inch is the first and most popular DEX aggregator, supporting instant swaps, limit orders, and peer-to-peer trades.
1inch dex aggregator swap page
The exchange sources liquidity from 245 sources on 8 different chains, including Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Fantom, etc.
1inch not only help you get the best prices for your trades, the exchange returns up to 100% of your trading fee to you every month when your trade meet certain conditions.
1inch is arguably the number one DEX aggregator, offering access to the deepest liquidity and the best token swap rates on various DEXes.
Other key features of the aggregator include partial order filling and the ability to find the best swap paths across multiple liquidity sources.
2. Odos
Odos Protocol is the first and only DEX aggregator that supports converting multiple tokens into one asset in a single atomic swap transaction.
ODOS DEX aggregator
The protocol introduced a patented, non-linear path finding algorithm, which aggregates DEXes and finds the optimal routes for token swaps.
It claims to use a number of unique methods and techniques to deliver a significant edge over other DEX aggregators for retail and institutional traders.
3. THORSwap
THORSwap is a first-of-its-kind cross-chain DEX aggregator built on THORChain that enable you to swap any native asset on THORChain to any token on any other supported chain.
THORSwap DEX aggregator
THORChain is the only decentralised cross-chain liquidity network that allows you to swap native assets of supported chains for another without using wrapped tokens or bridges.
It is a cross-chain liquidity protocol that developers can build on or integrate into their dApps to offer cross-chain swap services to their users.
Currently, over a dozen Apps or services have integrated THORChain under the hood of their interfaces, including THORSwap.
Rather than connect to external liquidity sources or bridges, THORChain maintains liquidity pools for all the assets on the various chains it supports.
Liquidity providers on the network earns yields from both trading fees and RUNE (THORChain native token) block emissions.
You can even provide liquidity to a single asset pool like Bitcoin (BTC) and earn yield on it.
THORChain currently supports 7 blockchain networks including Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Dogecoin, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash.
In addition to cross-chain token swaps, THORChain offers synthetic wrapped assets that can always be redeemed RUNE at any time.
4. Oxgen
0xgen claims to be the ultimate liquidity aggregator trading platform that sources liquidity from and splits your orders among DEX aggregators to offer you the best price and lowest slippage.
0xgen DEX aggregator
It is the DEX aggregator that aggregates other DEX aggregators.
The exchange is connected to over 18 chains and supports over 400 DEXes.
And aims to provide you with the most intuitive and friendly user interface (UX) with its simple design.
5. Matcha
Matcha Matcha is both a DEX and a DEX aggregator built by 0x Labs which supports both market and limit order types.
Matcha DEX aggregator trading interface
The exchange claims to let you trade on all DEXs at once and from one place, by aggregating all the offers from various liquidity sources and merging them into one trade in order to save you time and money.
Match taps into over 50 decentralised exchanges or liquidity sources on 7 chains, including Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, Avalanche, Fantom, etc.
And similar to 0xgen above, Matcha was designed to be super easy to use with its simple and neat layout.
Furthermore, Matcha is the only DEX aggregator with a gasless trading feature which allows you to trade on Ethereum without paying gas fees.
This feature is only available on a few trading pairs and you can choose to use it or turn it off at will.
If a trading pair supports gasless feature, you’ll see a button to activate or deactivate it, otherwise, you’ll only see the regular swap page.
However, trading pairs with gasless feature seems to have awful rates which can offset any gains from saved fees.
So make sure to check the rates carefully and compare it what you get in a normal transation or on other aggregators before ececuting a gassless trade.
PS: Matcha restricts users from certain regions such as China and Russia from accessing or trading on its platfom. But you can use VPN to bypass these restrictions.
6. OpenOcean
OpenOcean is a first-of-its-kind DEX aggregator that sources liquidity from both decentralised and centralised exchanges and split or route your trade accordingly to give you the best rates.
OpenOcean DEX aggregator
The platform taps into over 145 liquidity sources on 16 chains and currently have more than 410,000 total active users.
OpenOcean is the only DEX aggregator with a referral system that gives you back 5% of your trading fee and 10% to your referrer.
Furthermore, OpenOcean has both a classic and advanced trading interface for regular and professional traders.
7. Jupiter
Jupiter is the leading liquidity aggregator on Solana that offers the widest range of tojens and best trading routes for your swaps.
One of the key features of Jupiter is that the platform automatically lists any token that’s listed in the Solana token registry.
Furthermore, it automatically picks up all trading pairs or pools created on any DEX that it aggregates. Thus ensuring that as long as your token gets listed, you can trade it on Jupiter.
And to further optimise for fees, the exchange attempts to execute your swaps in a single transaction, even if it involves multiple routes
However, if they are unable to process the swap in a single transaction, it will fail and you may have to reinitiate it.
8. ParaSwap
ParaSwap is a multi-chain DEX aggregator that sources liquidity, price and data feeds from DeFi protocols and private market makers to give you the best prices for your trades.
Through its Multipath feature, ParaSwap uses both direct and indirect trading routes and seamlessly interact with various services to find the best possible routing for your trade.
The algorithm explores every possible path, including the ones involving extra hops through in-between assets to find the perfect route for a trade.
It does all these in a single gas-efficient transaction in order to save you money in gas fees.
9. CowSwap
CowSwap is a meta DEX aggregator hat allows you to trade tokens without paying gas fees while protecting you from front-running or maximum extractable value (MEV) attacks.
CowSwap DEX aggregator
It uses a novel peer-to-peer transaction settlement system where trades are settled among its users or through on-chain liquidity sources.
Every time you and another trader each hold an asset the other wants, your trade is settled directly without using a DEX and therefore without incurring any slippage or paying gas fees.
And when a trade cannot be executed peer-to-peer among CowSwap users, it’s settled on-chain using other liquidity sources it aggregates.
DEX aggregators are most useful when you’re transacting large volumes or when a token has liquidity on multiple DEXes.
However, when the trade amount is small and liquidity is only available on a single DEX, it’s pointless to use a DEX aggregator.
Furthermore, it’s best to enter the same trade on multiple DEX aggregators discussed here to see which ones gives you the ultimate best price.
Overtime, you’ll find the one(s) that works best for each type of trade and offers you the best deal or user experience.
Advantages of using DEX aggregators?
Through out this article, we’ve highlighted the advantages of using a DEX aggregator.
They basically help
Save you time in comparing rates across multiple DEXes on different chains.
You to find the best price for a trade through transaction splitting and routing.
To optimise your transaction to pay the lowest possible gas fees by executing your trade in a single transaction regardless of how many sources are involved.
Disadvantages of DEX aggregators
Some conditions that may make using a DEX aggregator pointless include:
Some tokens only have liquidity on a single DEX. So, there’s no point in using an aggregator to trade such tokens.
Curve is the major destination for stablecoin swaps and most DEX aggregators don’t include it in routing or as a liquidity source. Thus, when swapping stablecoins through Curve, DEX aggregators are not needed.
Another potential issue with DEX aggregators is speed. During peak volatility periods, DEX aggregators may load slower because they’re busy calculating optimal routes for your trade.
Some DEX aggregators require more gas for the same trade if the algorithm does not merge all transactions into one.
Conclusion
DEX aggregators are platforms that uses algorithms to split and route your trades across various liquidity sources to give you best prices.
They further save you money by optimising for the lowest fees possible. And that’s why many people are beginning to use them more for especially large volume trades.
In this post, I shared with you the top 9 best DEX aggregators out there that you can use to trade more efficiently.
I suggest that you try enter the same trade on multiple DEX aggregators discussed above to see which one gives you the overall best rates for a particular trade.
Which is your favourite DEX aggregator? Join our Telegram community and share your experience with us and other users.
