Relay scores 35 points above Stargate, led by trust, route clarity, and transfer speed. Stargate ranks #12 and Relay #1 of 18 published bridges. Every term of the gap is on the ledger below; the inputs are on the audit receipt.
Stargate51
vs
Relay86
Scores are out of 100; published scores fall within 41–99 · ranks #12 and #1 of 18
Criteria roundingThe criteria block is rounded to whole points before it is spread+0.1
Reproduced gap+35.4
Published gapAfter score rounding and bounds — see the note below8651+35.0
Weight is in points of the 86-point weighted total. Points are score points of the gap between the two.
RelayScore 86Cleaner bridge path for users who want low-friction multichain movementStrength: Speed — 9/10Watch-out: Relay's chain list on 2026-09-30 had no Sui, Stellar or Cosmos chains; Squid's chain data covers all threeStargateScore 51Omnichain liquidity bridge for broader route coverageStrength: Route coverage — 8/10Watch-out: Less purely mainstream than a simpler route-led bridge default
Quick facts
At a glance
1 of 3 rows read the same for both.
FactStargateRelay
PricingSnapshotStargate user docs, "Fees" (stargateprotocol.gitbook.io/stargate/v2-user-docs/whats-new-in-stargate-v2/fees.md, fetched 30 September 2026): "In V1, Stargate charged a flat 6 bps fee for all transactions via V1 pools. In V2, with the help of the AI Planning Module (AIPM) Stargate V2 enables dynamic fees." The fee "refers to the difference between the input by the user on the source chain and the received amount on the destination chain", and on a depleted pathway "a rebate is offered to help rebalance the liquidity in the system." Gas is paid separately in the source-chain native token for "LayerZero's execution fee" and the "Fee to the DVN for verifying the message between LayerZero endpoints". The V2 page publishes no rate, so the flat figure the previous note carried is the V1 rate, not a V2 price. Stargate's own quote API (stargate.finance/api/v1) answered HTTP 410 and points to LayerZero's Value Transfer API.Relay docs, "Cost & Fee Structure" (docs.relay.link/references/api/api_core_concepts/fees, fetched 30 September 2026): four components - Execution Cost ("$0.02 flat fee - always included" plus a destination fill-gas estimate), Swap Cost (payments to liquidity providers, DEX fees and solver rebalancing; no rate published), Platform Fees, and integrator App Fees. The Platform Fee table reads "Token Bridge & Same-Chain Wrap/Unwrap Stablecoin Swap Major Swap Minor Swap Platform Fees charged to end users 0.00% 0.01% 0.06% 0.15%", so a same-token bridge carries a 0.00% platform fee. "For regular (non-gasless) transactions, the user pays origin gas directly from their own wallet to the network".
Asset coverageEditorialBroader route and liquidity coverage across supported token and chain pairsLower-friction cross-chain token movement across supported routes
Region fitSnapshotus, europe, globalus, europe, global
From the published criteria
Which should you pick?
Stargate
51#12 of 18
Pick it when
Stargate leads Relay on no published criterion and no score dimension — pick it only if a fact outside the score (country, funding rail, custody) decides for you.
Strength
Route coverage — 8/10
Tradeoff
Less purely mainstream than a simpler route-led bridge default
Relay
86#1 of 18
Leads
Pick it when
Pick Relay if trust matters most — it scores 5/10 to Stargate's 4/10 there (weight 26).
Strength
Speed — 9/10
Tradeoff
Relay's chain list on 2026-09-30 had no Sui, Stellar or Cosmos chains; Squid's chain data covers all three
Self-identify in 10 seconds
Which one is actually for you?
Stargate
Stargate leads Relay on no published criterion
Choose it only if something outside the published criteria decides for you — your country, a funding rail, or custody.
StargateScore 51Omnichain liquidity bridge for broader route coverageStrength: Route coverage — 8/10Watch-out: Less purely mainstream than a simpler route-led bridge default
RelayLeads
Choose Relay if trust matters most
Trust: 5/10 against 4/10 for Stargate (weight 26)
Route clarity: 7/10 against 3/10 for Stargate (weight 24)
Transfer speed: 9/10 against 4/10 for Stargate (weight 22)
RelayScore 86Cleaner bridge path for users who want low-friction multichain movementStrength: Speed — 9/10Watch-out: Relay's chain list on 2026-09-30 had no Sui, Stellar or Cosmos chains; Squid's chain data covers all three
Criterion by criterion
Scorecard
Published criteria · weight in points of 868 of 8 cells scored. Strength is read from the evidence file; the weight is the published one. Methodology
Route coverage
weight 6.7 of 86Tie
Stargate8/10 out of 10
Relay8/10 out of 10
Route clarity
by 4 of 10weight 5.8 of 86Relay leads
Stargate3/10 out of 10
Relay7/10 out of 10
Transfer speed
by 5 of 10weight 5.3 of 86Relay leads
Stargate4/10 out of 10
Relay9/10 out of 10
Trust
by 1 of 10weight 6.2 of 86Relay leads
Stargate4/10 out of 10
Relay5/10 out of 10
Score dimensions
weights sum to 86
The published score is five dimensions, each weighted for the category. "Published criteria" is the criteria block above; the other four are the engine's own terms — availability, friction, trust record, measured data. Each bar is one side's points out of that dimension's maximum; the weight beside the name is its points of the 86-point weighted total. The published criteria above can fill 24 of the block’s 30. A weight marked “constant here” belongs to a dimension every ranked product in the category holds at the same value: it still counts in the total, and it orders nothing here.
Availabilityweight 20 of 86
Stargate20/20Relay20/20
Tie
Published criteriaweight 30 of 86
Stargate11.7/30Relay17.3/30
Relay leads
Frictionweight 10 of 86 · constant here
Stargate2.7/10Relay2.7/10
Tie
Trust recordweight 8 of 86
Stargate3.2/8Relay5.6/8
Relay leads
Measured dataweight 18 of 86
Stargate6.9/18Relay12.5/18
Relay leads
Decision rulePublished order
Choose Relay unless the term Stargate leads on is the one you are buying.
Stargate leads Relay on no published criterion and no score dimension — pick it only if a fact outside the score (country, funding rail, custody) decides for you.
The published order weighs every criterion the same way for everyone. To weigh them your way, run .
From the published order
Next best action
If this isn't your case
Other matchups worth comparing
How you can lose money here, and what the ranking scores
Verification failure: an invalid state or transfer is accepted.
Scored by Trust posture · 26% (Stargate 4/10, Relay 5/10)
Not assessed by this ranking: Contract failure, Control failure, Liveness failure, Custody failure, Regulatory failure, Execution failure, Exit failure. A high place says nothing about these; the Methodology tab says what each means.
Also scored, as cost, quality or a summary of several families: Route coverage (28%), Route clarity (24%), Execution speed (22%).
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Relay scores 35 points above Stargate, led by trust, route clarity, and transfer speed. Published scores, out of 100: Stargate 51 (rank 12 of 18 bridges), Relay 86 (rank 1 of 18).
Reviewed means both products compared here was read against its sources on or after that date; every ranked category is re-read at least every 45 days. Models research, extract and parse. A deterministic engine ranks. Every quote passes an adversarial refute pass.
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