CoW Protocol vs Nordstern 2026: 2 live benchmarks compared

Name: CoW Protocol vs Nordstern OpenChainBench measurements
Creator: OpenChainBench
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

OpenChainBench

CoW Protocol vs Nordstern

Nordstern leads on both live benchmarks. Nordstern wins on Fastest EVM swap quote API (376 ms vs 2.38 s), Best DEX aggregator by quote output (0.65 bps vs 3.76 bps). Data as of 2026-10-22 UTC.

Read methodology Last measured Thu, 22 Oct 2026 01:11:17 UTCWindow: rolling 24h2 shared benchmarks

CoW Protocol

CoW Protocol settles trades via batch auctions with coincidence-of-wants matching, MEV protection, and solver competition. CoW Swap is the reference frontend; the protocol settles flow from many integrators.

Nordstern

Side by side measurements

Fastest EVM swap quote API

Aggregators

Headline: All chains

CoW Protocol

Trails

2.38 s

p99: 4.68 s
rank: #9
samples: 2,881

Nordstern

Leads

376 ms

p99: 1.96 s
rank: #4
samples: 3,581

Per chain · per region

Chain	Provider	US East	EU West	Singapore	Aggregate
Ethereum	CoW Protocol	955 ms	809 ms	929 ms	897 ms
Ethereum	Nordstern	367 ms	300 ms	387 ms	351 ms
Base	CoW Protocol	2.79 s	2.58 s	2.82 s	2.73 s
Base	Nordstern	395 ms	360 ms	379 ms	378 ms
Arbitrum	CoW Protocol	3.50 s	3.50 s	3.50 s	3.50 s
Arbitrum	Nordstern	420 ms	367 ms	428 ms	405 ms

Quote latency

CoW Protocoln/aNordsternn/a

Best DEX aggregator by quote output: who actually gives you more

Aggregators

Headline: All chains

CoW Protocol

Trails

3.76 bps

p99: 11.9 bps
rank: —
samples: 2,881

Nordstern

Leads

0.65 bps

p99: 8.12 bps
rank: #2
samples: 3,581

Per chain

Chain	CoW Protocol	Nordstern
Ethereum	2.63 bps	0.35 bps
Base	2.13 bps	0.37 bps
Arbitrum	6.51 bps	1.56 bps

Quote shortfall

CoW Protocoln/aNordsternn/a

Every provider is asked for the same swap at the same second, and each answer is scored against the best of that round. The figure is how much less you would have received, in basis points. Quotes are not comparable between rounds: the market moves 30 to 37 bps in five minutes while the field sits inside 25. Two providers take a fee out of the quote and declare it, shown separately: giving up 25 bps to a toll is not routing badly.

Frequently asked questions

CoW Protocol vs Nordstern: which one is better?

CoW Protocol and Nordstern are compared on 2 shared OpenChainBench benchmarks. Nordstern leads on Fastest EVM swap quote API. See the live table on this page for every metric.

Which is faster, CoW Protocol or Nordstern?

On the Fastest EVM swap quote API benchmark, Nordstern leads at 376 ms versus CoW Protocol at 2.38 s. Live measurement is updated continuously by the OpenChainBench harness.

How is the CoW Protocol vs Nordstern comparison measured?

Every benchmark on this page uses the same open methodology, published at https://openchainbench.com/methodology. Data is CC-BY-4.0. Measurement harnesses are MIT-licensed.

How this pair was selected

Auto-generated pairs require: both providers in the same benchmark for seven consecutive days, at least 1000 samples per provider, observable third-party search demand, and a public /products/[slug] page on OCB. Editorially curated pairs (like this one) may publish early when search demand is high and data is accruing; panels with fewer than 100 samples are shown as provisional. The full pair ledger is versioned in the public repo.