Electrum vs Phoenix

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

Electrum4.4Bitcoin-only

The oldest bitcoin wallet still in active development, and the one whose users are hunted by a fake-update scam running since December 2018.

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: Electrum

Electrum rates higher on our rubric: 4.4 against 4.0 for Phoenix.

Criterion: Editorial rating
Electrum: 4.4
Phoenix: 4.0

Electrum 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.

Electrum and Phoenix compared fact by fact from their reviews; a check marks the side a decidable criterion favours.
Fact	Electrum	Phoenix
Editorial rating	4.4 (favoured on this row)	4.0
Status	Available	Available
Made by	Electrum Technologies GmbH	ACINQ
Price	Free download	Free download
Who holds the keys	self-custodial, keys generated and encrypted on your own machine, with transactions checked by SPV	self-custodial, a real Lightning node running on your phone behind a 12 word seed
Bitcoin-only	Yes	Yes
Runs on	Android, Windows, macOS, Linux	iOS, Android
Screen	Not stated	Not stated
Connectivity	Connects to public Electrum servers or one you run yourself, verifying your transactions by SPV	Lightning only, connecting to ACINQ's nodes, with the option to watch the chain through your own Electrum server
Released	November 2011, written by Thomas Voegtlin	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

Electrum

What works

Continuously maintained since November 2011, which nothing else on this list can claim
Lightweight: it checks your transactions by SPV instead of downloading the whole chain
Reproducible builds, signed by several independent builders, with signatures published next to every download
Hardware wallet support for Ledger, Trezor and KeepKey, plus multisig and watch-only cold storage
MIT licensed, and anyone can run the server software it talks to, so no company controls the network
An official Android build on both Google Play and F-Droid

What to watch

Users are the target of a fake-update scam that ZDNet traced to more than 22 million dollars of thefts by October 2020
The interface assumes you already know what a change address and a derivation path are
Windows builds are often flagged by antivirus heuristics, which the project says it cannot do anything about
No iOS version, and no built-in way to buy bitcoin
Two-factor signing runs through a third party, Trustedcoin, rather than the wallet alone

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 Electrum or Phoenix better?

Electrum rates higher on our rubric: 4.4 against 4.0 for Phoenix. 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 Electrum and Phoenix free?

Yes, both are free to download. What differs is who holds the keys: Electrum is self-custodial, keys generated and encrypted on your own machine, with transactions checked by SPV; Phoenix is self-custodial, a real Lightning node running on your phone behind a 12 word seed.

Is Electrum or Phoenix bitcoin-only?

Both are bitcoin-only: neither supports another coin, which is a deliberate design choice for a smaller codebase.

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

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