DEX Review: Honest Takes on Decentralized Exchanges You Can Actually Use

When you trade crypto without a bank or company in the middle, you’re using a decentralized exchange, a peer-to-peer platform that lets you swap crypto directly from your wallet using smart contracts. Also known as a DEX, it’s the backbone of DeFi—no KYC, no freeze buttons, no CEO deciding if you can cash out. But not all DEXes are built the same. Some have real liquidity, real users, and real security. Others? They’re ghost towns with fake volume, zero support, and a high chance you’ll lose your money before you even know what happened.

That’s why DEX reviews matter. You don’t just pick a DEX because it has a cool name or a flashy website. You look at volume, liquidity, audit status, and whether anyone’s actually trading on it. Take SushiSwap, a well-known DeFi protocol that runs on multiple blockchains like BSC and Ethereum. It’s been around for years, has real community governance, and still gets daily trades. But on BSC? It works. On Base? The version you’re hearing about doesn’t exist yet. And SaitaSwap, an Ethereum-based DEX with almost zero trading volume? It’s dead. No one’s using it. No one’s updating it. It’s just a placeholder with a token that no one wants.

Then there are the ones that look real but aren’t. IguanaDEX, a niche DEX on Etherlink with a unique market index feature—it’s visually different, but lacks audits and liquidity. Same with DeepBook Protocol, the first on-chain order book on Sui. It’s technically impressive, but only useful if you’re already deep into Sui and know how to handle high-speed trading. And don’t get fooled by names like CroSwap, a Cronos Network DEX with $36 in daily volume. That’s not a marketplace. That’s a data point in a graveyard.

What you’ll find here isn’t a list of every DEX ever made. It’s a curated collection of real, tested, and often brutal reviews—each one answering the same question: Should you use this? You’ll see which ones are actively traded, which ones are scams in disguise, and which ones are so broken they’re barely worth mentioning. Some DEXes offer low fees but no support. Others have high liquidity but complex interfaces. A few are actually changing DeFi with new tech like on-chain order books or dual-token rewards. But most? They’re just noise.

This isn’t about hype. It’s about what works when your money’s on the line. Whether you’re swapping tokens for the first time or trying to find a DEX that doesn’t vanish after a 24-hour spike, these reviews cut through the fluff. No flattery. No sponsored blurbs. Just the truth—what’s live, what’s dead, and what you should avoid like a bad connection.