Stargate and Synapse tie on score at 51; the published tie-break orders them. Stargate is ahead on route coverage. Stargate ranks #12 and Synapse #11 of 18 published bridges. The ledger below shows where each side is ahead — pick by the criterion that matters to you.
Stargate51
vs
Synapse51
Scores are out of 100; published scores fall within 41–99 · ranks #12 and #11 of 18
Stargate and Synapse tie on score at 51; the published tie-break orders them. Stargate is ahead on route coverage.
Stargate #12 of 1851
Synapse #11 of 1851
Scores are out of 100; published scores fall within 41–99; a bar is empty at 41 and full at 99.
Why, term by termStargate leads on 1 of 4 published criteria; Synapse on 1. The terms sum to the gap.
TermStargateSynapseWeightPoints
Route coverage8/106/106.7+3.5for Stargate+1.8 of 32
Transfer speed4/107/105.3−4.1for Synapse−2.1 of 32
Net of the terms−0.6
Criteria roundingThe criteria block is rounded to whole points before it is spread−0.2
Reproduced gap−0.8
Published gapAfter score rounding and bounds — see the note below51510.0
Weight is in points of the 86-point weighted total. Points are score points of the gap between the two.
EvidenceEvidence evidence high vs evidence medium — how well each score is supported, not the score itself
StargateScore 51Omnichain liquidity bridge for broader route coverageStrength: Route coverage — 8/10Watch-out: Less purely mainstream than a simpler route-led bridge defaultSynapseScore 51EVM-focused multichain bridge, with Solana reached through a separate bridgeStrength: Speed — 7/10Watch-out: Synapse's quote API answered "No bridge routes found" for USDC and ETH between Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism and Base on 2026-09-30, and again for ETH from Ethereum to Arbitrum and from Arbitrum to Optimism on 2026-10-23, when its /bridge/v2 endpoint returned HTTP 500. The bridge still settles transfers: its Ethereum contract (0x2796317b0fF8538F253012862c06787Adfb8cEb6) logged 50 TokenWithdraw and TokenMint events between 11 and 22 October 2026, the latest at 20:04 UTC on 22 October. Get a quote in its app before you rely on a route
Quick facts
At a glance
1 of 3 rows read the same for both.
FactStargateSynapse
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.No Synapse price could be read on 30 September 2026. The Synapse REST API (api.synapseprotocol.com), which its docs page docs.synapseprotocol.com/docs/Bridge/REST-API describes as the way to "retrieve quotes", returned "No bridge routes found" for USDC Ethereum to Arbitrum, Ethereum to Optimism and Arbitrum to Base and for ETH Ethereum to Arbitrum and Arbitrum to Optimism, and its /bridge/v2 endpoint returned "An unexpected error occurred in /bridge/v2. Please try again later." The Synapse docs pages read (Bridge, REST API, Supported Routes, Synapse Intent Network, contract pages) publish no fee rate, so the percentage the previous note carried is not repeated.
Asset coverageEditorialBroader route and liquidity coverage across supported token and chain pairsToken transfers through Synapse's legacy nUSD/nETH pools and its RFQ relayer network, where a route can be quoted
Region fitSnapshotus, europe, globalus, europe, global
From the published criteria
Which should you pick?
Stargate
51#12 of 18
Pick it when
Pick Stargate if route coverage matters most — it scores 8/10 to Synapse's 6/10 there (weight 28).
Strength
Route coverage — 8/10
Tradeoff
Less purely mainstream than a simpler route-led bridge default
Synapse
51#11 of 18
Pick it when
Pick Synapse if transfer speed matters most — it scores 7/10 to Stargate's 4/10 there (weight 22).
Strength
Speed — 7/10
Tradeoff
Synapse's quote API answered "No bridge routes found" for USDC and ETH between Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism and Base on 2026-09-30, and again for ETH from Ethereum to Arbitrum and from Arbitrum to Optimism on 2026-10-23, when its /bridge/v2 endpoint returned HTTP 500. The bridge still settles transfers: its Ethereum contract (0x2796317b0fF8538F253012862c06787Adfb8cEb6) logged 50 TokenWithdraw and TokenMint events between 11 and 22 October 2026, the latest at 20:04 UTC on 22 October. Get a quote in its app before you rely on a route
Self-identify in 10 seconds
Which one is actually for you?
Stargate
Choose Stargate if route coverage matters most
Route coverage: 8/10 against 6/10 for Synapse (weight 28)
StargateScore 51Omnichain liquidity bridge for broader route coverageStrength: Route coverage — 8/10Watch-out: Less purely mainstream than a simpler route-led bridge default
Synapse
Choose Synapse if transfer speed matters most
Transfer speed: 7/10 against 4/10 for Stargate (weight 22)
SynapseScore 51EVM-focused multichain bridge, with Solana reached through a separate bridgeStrength: Speed — 7/10Watch-out: Synapse's quote API answered "No bridge routes found" for USDC and ETH between Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism and Base on 2026-09-30, and again for ETH from Ethereum to Arbitrum and from Arbitrum to Optimism on 2026-10-23, when its /bridge/v2 endpoint returned HTTP 500. The bridge still settles transfers: its Ethereum contract (0x2796317b0fF8538F253012862c06787Adfb8cEb6) logged 50 TokenWithdraw and TokenMint events between 11 and 22 October 2026, the latest at 20:04 UTC on 22 October. Get a quote in its app before you rely on a route
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
by 2 of 10weight 6.7 of 86Stargate leads
Stargate8/10 out of 10
Synapse6/10 out of 10
Route clarity
weight 5.8 of 86Tie
Stargate3/10 out of 10
Synapse3/10 out of 10
Transfer speed
by 3 of 10weight 5.3 of 86Synapse leads
Stargate4/10 out of 10
Synapse7/10 out of 10
Trust
weight 6.2 of 86Tie
Stargate4/10 out of 10
Synapse4/10 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
Stargate20/20Synapse20/20
Tie
Published criteriaweight 30 of 86
Stargate11.7/30Synapse12/30
Synapse leads
Frictionweight 10 of 86 · constant here
Stargate2.7/10Synapse2.7/10
Tie
Trust recordweight 8 of 86
Stargate3.2/8Synapse3.2/8
Tie
Measured dataweight 18 of 86
Stargate6.9/18Synapse6.9/18
Tie
Decision rulePublished order
Same published score — pick by the criterion that matters to you.
Pick Stargate if route coverage matters most — it scores 8/10 to Synapse's 6/10 there (weight 28).
Pick Synapse if transfer speed matters most — it scores 7/10 to Stargate's 4/10 there (weight 22).
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, Synapse 4/10)
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
Stargate and Synapse tie on score at 51; the published tie-break orders them. Stargate is ahead on route coverage. Published scores, out of 100: Stargate 51 (rank 12 of 18 bridges), Synapse 51 (rank 11 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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