Relay scores 35 points above Synapse, led by route coverage, trust, and route clarity. Synapse ranks #11 and Relay #1 of 18 published bridges. Every term of the gap is on the ledger below; the inputs are on the audit receipt.
Synapse51
vs
Relay86
Scores are out of 100; published scores fall within 41–99 · ranks #11 and #1 of 18
Criteria roundingThe criteria block is rounded to whole points before it is spread−0.1
Reproduced gap+34.6
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.
EvidenceEvidence evidence high vs evidence medium — how well each score is supported, not the score itself
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 threeSynapseScore 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.
FactSynapseRelay
PricingSnapshotNo 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.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 coverageEditorialToken transfers through Synapse's legacy nUSD/nETH pools and its RFQ relayer network, where a route can be quotedLower-friction cross-chain token movement across supported routes
Region fitSnapshotus, europe, globalus, europe, global
From the published criteria
Which should you pick?
Synapse
51#11 of 18
Pick it when
Synapse 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
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
Relay
86#1 of 18
Leads
Pick it when
Pick Relay if route coverage matters most — it scores 8/10 to Synapse's 6/10 there (weight 28).
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?
Synapse
Synapse 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.
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
RelayLeads
Choose Relay if route coverage matters most
Route coverage: 8/10 against 6/10 for Synapse (weight 28)
Trust: 5/10 against 4/10 for Synapse (weight 26)
Route clarity: 7/10 against 3/10 for Synapse (weight 24)
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
by 2 of 10weight 6.7 of 86Relay leads
Synapse6/10 out of 10
Relay8/10 out of 10
Route clarity
by 4 of 10weight 5.8 of 86Relay leads
Synapse3/10 out of 10
Relay7/10 out of 10
Transfer speed
by 2 of 10weight 5.3 of 86Relay leads
Synapse7/10 out of 10
Relay9/10 out of 10
Trust
by 1 of 10weight 6.2 of 86Relay leads
Synapse4/10 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
Synapse20/20Relay20/20
Tie
Published criteriaweight 30 of 86
Synapse12/30Relay17.3/30
Relay leads
Frictionweight 10 of 86 · constant here
Synapse2.7/10Relay2.7/10
Tie
Trust recordweight 8 of 86
Synapse3.2/8Relay5.6/8
Relay leads
Measured dataweight 18 of 86
Synapse6.9/18Relay12.5/18
Relay leads
Decision rulePublished order
Choose Relay unless the term Synapse leads on is the one you are buying.
Synapse 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% (Synapse 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 Synapse, led by route coverage, trust, and route clarity. Published scores, out of 100: Synapse 51 (rank 11 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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