Cake Wallet vs Phoenix

Comparing: two wallets
Decided by: Editorial rating
Last reviewed: 2026-08-26

Open source Monero-first wallet with real bitcoin privacy tools, carrying a 2021 key generation bug that is still costing people coins.

Phoenix4.0Bitcoin-only

A real Lightning node on your phone from the team behind Eclair, with a published fee table and a privacy tradeoff ACINQ states outright.

Verdict: Phoenix

Phoenix rates higher on our rubric: 4.0 against 3.3 for Cake Wallet.

Criterion: Editorial rating
Cake Wallet: 3.3
Phoenix: 4.0

Cake Wallet and Phoenix, fact by fact

Every row is from the two reviews as of their review dates, with sources on each. A check marks the side a decidable criterion favours; rows without one are information, not a score.

Cake Wallet and Phoenix compared fact by fact from their reviews; a check marks the side a decidable criterion favours.
Fact	Cake Wallet	Phoenix
Editorial rating	3.3	4.0 (favoured on this row)
Status	Available	Available
Made by	Cake Labs	ACINQ
Price	Free download	Free download
Who holds the keys	self-custodial, seed and keys generated and stored on your own device, with no account and no telemetry	self-custodial, a real Lightning node running on your phone behind a 12 word seed
Bitcoin-only	No	Yes
Runs on	iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux	iOS, Android
Screen	Not stated	Not stated
Connectivity	Tor for all traffic, connection to your own node, Ledger hardware signing, and silent payments plus PayJoin on the bitcoin side	Lightning only, connecting to ACINQ's nodes, with the option to watch the chain through your own Electrum server
Released	2018, launched as the first open-source Monero wallet on iOS	December 2019, alongside ACINQ's Eclair node implementation
Countries on the maker's list	No published list	No published list
Last reviewed	2026-08-25	2026-08-26

Pros and cons, side by side

Cake Wallet

What works

Open source under an MIT license, with a public repository that is actively developed
Self-custodial with no account and no KYC, and, in Cake's words, zero data collection or telemetry
Genuine bitcoin privacy tooling: silent payments and PayJoin, plus Tor for all traffic and your own node
Handles Monero properly, which almost no other multi-asset wallet does
Ledger hardware wallet support, plus Cake's own two-factor option and biometric unlock
Reachable outside the app stores: direct APK, Accrescent, and Windows and Linux builds

What to watch

Bitcoin wallets created before v4.1.7 are permanently unsafe and have to be replaced, not just updated
The Milk Sad researchers traced sweeps of those weak wallets continuing into 2024, three years after the warning
The flaw was in Cake's own key generation code rather than a third-party library, and it ran through 2020 and 2021
Multi-asset by design, so it carries far more chains and far more code than a bitcoin-only wallet
Monero's privacy guarantees and much more transparent chains share one app, which takes care to use well

Phoenix

What works

A real self-custodial Lightning node on the phone, not an account on somebody's server
Fees published as a table on ACINQ's own site: 0.4% plus 4 sat to send, free to receive when you have liquidity
Standard BIP39 seed on a BIP84 path, recoverable in Electrum if ACINQ ever disappeared
Built by ACINQ, which develops the Eclair implementation and runs a large routing node
Rotating taproot receive addresses, with swaps that look like ordinary transactions on chain

What to watch

ACINQ's own FAQ says Phoenix offers no privacy advantage over a custodial wallet and that ACINQ knows the destination and amount of payments
Receiving without enough inbound liquidity costs 1% plus mining fees, and a new channel costs 1,000 sat
No on-chain balance, which makes it a spending wallet rather than somewhere to park savings
Recovering from a force close takes roughly 720 blocks, about five days
Wake-up notifications rely on Google services, so GrapheneOS users need the sandboxed Play Services app
Was off US app stores from May 3, 2024 until some point in 2025, which is why some reviews still call it unavailable there

Frequently asked questions

Is Cake Wallet or Phoenix better?

Phoenix rates higher on our rubric: 4.0 against 3.3 for Cake Wallet. The rating follows the product rubric published on our about page; the rows above set custody, price and platforms side by side so you can check it.

Are Cake Wallet and Phoenix free?

Yes, both are free to download. What differs is who holds the keys: Cake Wallet is self-custodial, seed and keys generated and stored on your own device, with no account and no telemetry; Phoenix is self-custodial, a real Lightning node running on your phone behind a 12 word seed.

Is Cake Wallet or Phoenix bitcoin-only?

Phoenix is bitcoin-only; Cake Wallet supports other assets too. Multi-asset: Monero, bitcoin, Lightning, Litecoin, Ethereum, Solana, Zcash, Bitcoin Cash and more

The full reviews: Cake Wallet and Phoenix, each with its sources, and every wallet we review.

More comparisons

Every other head-to-head Cake Wallet or Phoenix appears in.