Uniswap Review
Published tiers and genuinely immutable core
of 10
Uniswap publishes its fee tiers plainly — 0.30% flat on v2, 0.05%/0.30%/1% on v3, freely settable on v4 — and states that core contracts cannot be upgraded, paused or reversed. Its licence is weaker than its documentation claims.
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v2 fee
0.30% flat
v3 fee tiers
0.05%, 0.30%, 1%
v4 fee
Settable 0% to 100% by pool creator
Licence
BUSL-1.1 plus MIT per file; change date 2027-06-15 to MIT
Immutability
Core not upgradeable, cannot be paused or reversed
Scores
Each criterion carries equal weight. The overall score is the average of these 5 scores — (10.0 + 5.0 + 10.0 + 10.0 + 9.0) ÷ 5 = 8.8.
Pros
- v3 tiers published as 0.05%, 0.30% and 1%; v2 a flat 0.30%
- Core contracts stated to be non-upgradeable, unpausable and non-reversible
- Deployed across 24 networks per official deployment docs
- Audits published as PDFs from OpenZeppelin and Trail of Bits
Cons
- v4-core ships under Business Source License 1.1, which is not an open-source licence
- User documentation describes the protocol as open-source and GPL-licensed, contradicting the licence files
- v4 lets pool creators set any fee from 0% to 100%, so the tier guarantee does not carry over
The immutability claim is unusually strong
Uniswap states that once deployed, core contracts are not upgradeable, that no party can pause them, reverse trade execution or change protocol behaviour retroactively. Most protocols in this comparison say nothing at all on the subject, and a few admit that parts remain upgradeable. This is the clearest position published by anyone here.
A contradiction worth naming
Uniswap's own developer documentation describes the protocol as open-source and GPL-licensed. The v4-core repository ships a Business Source License 1.1 file naming Universal Navigation Inc. as licensor, converting to MIT no later than 15 June 2027. BUSL is a delayed-open licence, not an open-source one. We score the licence file, not the description of it, which is why this criterion sits well below the others.
Fees are clear, until v4
The v2 and v3 tiers are unambiguous. In v4, pool creators may set any fee from 0% to 100% in 0.0001% increments, so the protocol-level guarantee a trader could previously rely on becomes a per-pool question.
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Zero protocol fees, unpublished core code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MIT-licensed aggregator with unpublished fees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
Aerodrome
Honest about which parts stay upgradeable
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
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.Uniswap — fee documentation — checked
- 2.Uniswap v4-core — BUSL licence file — checked
- 3.Uniswap — how Uniswap works (immutability claim) — checked
- 4.Uniswap v4 — deployment addresses — checked
Frequently asked questions
What are Uniswap's fees?
Uniswap publishes 0.30% flat on v2 and tiers of 0.05%, 0.30% and 1% on v3. In v4 pool creators can set any fee from 0% to 100%.
Is Uniswap open source?
The v4-core repository ships under Business Source License 1.1, which is not an open-source licence, converting to MIT by 15 June 2027 — although Uniswap's own user docs describe the protocol as GPL-licensed.
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