Uniswap Review

Uniswap is rated in our decentralized exchange ranking, which scores nine protocols on five equally weighted criteria. This entry covers the Uniswap v2, v3 and v4 contracts as described by Uniswap's developer documentation, deployment pages and GitHub repositories on 1 November 2026. The basis is desk research; we did not trade or provide liquidity.

How Uniswap scores in decentralized exchanges

Every criterion carries the same weight, so the overall score is the plain average: (9 + 5 + 10 + 9 + 9) ÷ 5 = 42 ÷ 5 = 8.4 out of 10.

This is a re-score. The previous entry, checked on 24 July 2026, stood at 8.8. Two marks moved from 10 to 9. On fees, v4 has no fee tiers, and we score that the same way we scored PancakeSwap's Infinity pools. On chain coverage, the current deployment pages list 21 mainnets, not the 24 recorded before. Uniswap still shares the highest score in the ranking, level with 1inch.

Strongest criteria

Immutability & governance (10)

Uniswap's "How Uniswap works" page is explicit. It says that once deployed, core contracts "are not upgradeable," that no party can pause them or reverse trades, and that protocol behavior cannot be changed after the fact. The one lever it names is governance's power to enable protocol fees on supported pools "within predefined limits." That lever is now in use. No other protocol in this ranking states a position this complete, and it is the only 10 on this criterion. It does not extend to v4 hooks. A hook is separate code chosen by a pool's creator, and it can carry its own upgrade or admin risk.

Fee transparency (9)

The fees page gives v2 as a flat 0.30% and v3 as tiers. Since the UNIfication proposal passed in December 2025, it also shows the protocol's cut, about one-sixth of the swap fee on all v2 pools and selected v3 pools:

On a $1,000 swap through a v2 pool, the fee is $3.00: $2.50 to liquidity providers (LPs) and $0.50 to the protocol fee, before gas. The mark is 9, not 10, because v4 drops fixed tiers. A v4 pool creator can set any fee from 0% to 100% in 0.0001% steps, or attach a hook that charges dynamic or extra fees. For v4 trades, the swap screen is the only place to see the rate. The page also calls 0.05%, 0.30% and 1% the "standard" v3 tiers while its own table lists a fourth at 0.01%.

Chain coverage (9) and audit disclosure (9)

The v4 deployment page lists 20 mainnets. They include Ethereum, Unichain, Base, Arbitrum One, OP Mainnet, Polygon, BNB Smart Chain, Avalanche, Monad, Robinhood Chain and HyperEVM. The v3 page adds ZKsync, for 21 in total. That matches SushiSwap's 9 and sits under Curve's 30 documented networks. The v4-core repository publishes final audit reports by OpenZeppelin and Trail of Bits, along with drafts from ABDK, Certora and Spearbit. Drafts are not final findings, so the mark stays at 9. An audit is not insurance, and it does not cover third-party hooks.

Weakest criterion: licence (5)

This is a measured deficiency, not a gap in evidence. The v4-core repository ships a Business Source License 1.1 file. It names Universal Navigation Inc. as licensor and permits only non-production use beyond its additional use grants. It converts to MIT on 15 June 2027 at the latest. BUSL is delayed-open, not open-source, and our rubric places it mid-table. Uniswap's own "How Uniswap works" page describes the protocol as "open-source (GPL-licensed)." That is true of the older code: GitHub reports GPL-3.0 for v2-core, and v3-core's BUSL change date passed in 2023. It is not yet true of the v4 core that new pools run on. We score the licence file, not the description of it.

What the score does not cover

The rating does not measure execution quality, price impact, MEV exposure, liquidity depth, the Uniswap app or wallet, UniswapX, Unichain's sequencer, or UNI as an investment. It does not vet hooks or tokens. Anyone can create a pool for any token, and a pool's existence says nothing about a token's legitimacy. The Uniswap Labs app applies its own address screening, which is separate from the protocol and not scored here. For costs this rubric leaves out, see our guide on how to compare DEXs.

Uniswap vs PancakeSwap and SushiSwap

The two other multi-chain EVM exchanges built on the same v2/v3 pool lineage are the closest comparison. Their marks below are as recorded on 1 November 2026.

The margin over PancakeSwap is narrow, and it rests on one criterion. Uniswap states plainly that its core contracts cannot be changed, while PancakeSwap does not say which of its contracts can be. PancakeSwap is ahead on licence and audits. Raydium also scores 8.2.

Who this rating suits

The score suits users who care most that the contracts they trade against cannot be altered by a team or a multisig, and who want published v2 and v3 fees with a stated protocol cut, on any of 21 networks. It is weaker for developers who want to reuse the v4 core in production before 2027. It is also weaker for traders routed through v4 pools, whose fees and hooks vary by pool. If AMM mechanics are new to you, start with how automated market makers work. The top score in a ranking is a statement about disclosure, not a promise about any trade.