Aerodrome Review
Honest about which parts stay upgradeable
of 10
Aerodrome states that the protocol is immutable but that its factories remain upgradable — an unusually candid distinction. Fees are given only as a 3% ceiling set per pool by a fee manager, and the licence is BUSL-1.1.
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Fee
Custom per pool, maximum 3%
Licence
BUSL-1.1; change licence GPL-2.0-or-later
Immutability
Protocol immutable; factories upgradable
Chains
Base, Optimism
Audit
MixBytes, 12 Sept - 3 Oct 2025
Scores
Each criterion carries equal weight. The overall score is the average of these 5 scores — (5.0 + 5.0 + 7.0 + 4.0 + 6.0) ÷ 5 = 5.4.
Pros
- States plainly that the protocol is immutable while factories are upgradable
- Fee ceiling published: a maximum of 3% per pool
- MixBytes audit named with dates, September to October 2025
Cons
- No fee tiers published, only a maximum and a note that fees adjust with volatility
- Business Source License 1.1, not an open-source licence
- Deployed on Base and Optimism only
- The official docs site refused automated access, so facts come from the GitHub organisation
Candour about the exception
Aerodrome's specification states that the protocol is immutable, and then states that to allow improvement the factories are all upgradable. Protocols usually claim the first and omit the second. Publishing the caveat alongside the claim is what this criterion is meant to reward, and it is why the immutability score sits above several protocols that simply say nothing.
Fees are a ceiling, not a schedule
A fee manager can set a custom fee per pool up to a 3% maximum, with the documentation noting fees may be adjusted based on market volatility. A trader cannot look up what a given pool charges from the documentation alone.
Licence and access
The contracts carry Business Source License 1.1, whose parameters still name Velodrome Smart Contracts as the licensed work. The official documentation site refused automated access when we checked, so everything above comes from the project's own GitHub organisation instead.
How it compares
Jupiter
Zero protocol fees, unpublished core code
1inch
MIT-licensed aggregator with unpublished fees
Orca
Detailed fee tiers under a revocable licence
Curve
Four named auditors, but the code grants no rights
Raydium
Exact fee tiers under a clean Apache licence
SushiSwap
Widest chain deployment, thinnest current disclosure
PancakeSwap
Ten named auditors and a GPL licence
Balancer
GPL-3.0 licensed and immutable by design
Uniswap
Published tiers and genuinely immutable core
Sources
Scored from published primary sources rather than hands-on use. Every figure above comes from one of the pages below, on the date shown. Manufacturers change prices and specifications without notice — if something here no longer matches the source, tell us and we will correct it.
- 1.Aerodrome — contracts specification and licence terms — checked
- 2.Aerodrome contracts — LICENSE — checked
- 3.Aerodrome — security documentation — checked
Frequently asked questions
What fees does Aerodrome charge?
Fees are set per pool by a fee manager up to a published maximum of 3%; no standard tier schedule is published.
Is Aerodrome immutable?
The protocol states it is immutable, but also that the factories are all upgradable to allow the protocol to be improved.
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