Hyperliquid vs Lighter: which is better?

Both are orderbook-based perpetual DEXs, but they're at very different scale and design. Data below per DefiLlama (24h fee revenue is the usage proxy here — trading volume isn't shown for derivatives, DefiLlama's perps volume data requires a paid plan; fees and revenue are the closest free signal):

In short: Hyperliquid is the dominant player by a wide margin — roughly 10x Lighter's fee revenue, and it's a full Layer-1 ecosystem (its own chain, spot, borrowing, an EVM) rather than just a DEX. Lighter differentiates on verifiability — zero-knowledge-based matching and liquidations that can be cryptographically proven — rather than on size. Its fee-to-revenue conversion (~93% of fees flow to the protocol) is also tighter than Hyperliquid's (~80%), meaning Lighter keeps more of what it generates.

What that means practically:

• Hyperliquid — if you want the deepest liquidity, tightest fills, and the widest feature set on a proven, battle-tested platform.
• Lighter — if verifiable/auditable matching and liquidations matter more to you than raw scale, and you're fine with a much smaller orderbook.

Neither publishes free TVL here, so judging purely on fee activity, Hyperliquid is the more established, higher-usage venue by a large margin.

LighterTrade Now is in our curated directory; Hyperliquid is not, so here's its direct link: app.hyperliquid.xyz.

This is a neutral data comparison, not a recommendation — choose based on which trade-offs (liquidity/scale vs. verifiability) fit you.