Side-by-side comparison of two perpetual futures exchanges — updated in real time.
Lighter and dYdX are both orderbook perp DEXes with strong fee incentives, but they take different approaches. Lighter offers completely fee-free trading, while dYdX provides maker rebates on its sovereign chain.
Lighter operates a fully on-chain orderbook on a custom Ethereum L2 with zero fees (both maker and taker), 153 markets, and up to 20x leverage. dYdX runs on its own Cosmos-based L1 with 188 markets, maker rebates of 0.011%, a 0.03% taker fee, and up to 25x leverage. For market takers, Lighter's zero fees are clearly superior. For market makers, dYdX's rebates actually pay you to provide liquidity, while Lighter's zero fee means no cost but no rebate either. dYdX offers slightly more leverage (25x vs 20x) and more markets (188 vs 153). dYdX's ecosystem is more developed, with MegaVault offering approximately 20% APR and $1.5M monthly trading rewards. The DYDX token (50% community) has been live since September 2021, while LIT (50% community) launched in December 2025. dYdX's sovereign chain provides full decentralization of the matching process, a meaningful advantage over Lighter's L2 approach for decentralization purists.
Choose Lighter for completely fee-free trading across all order types. Choose dYdX for maker rebates, a broader market selection (188 vs 153), passive yield through MegaVault, and the credibility of a sovereign blockchain.
