Best Monero wallet: which one to choose in 2027

The best Monero wallets in one table

The four apps in the table are non-custodial and open source: the keys stay with you, not with a company. All of them appear in the wallet list on the official Monero website. The current version of Monero GUI as of October 12, 2026, is 0.18.5.3.

What a Monero wallet should be able to do

Five features matter more than any ranking.

1. You hold the keys. The seed phrase is created on your device and is not sent anywhere. An XMR balance on an exchange is an entry in someone else's database, which is a different thing from a wallet: we explained separately how custodial storage differs from non-custodial. A swap service like VertEXchange does not hold coins either: it sends them straight to your address.
2. Open source. Software that holds your keys has to be open to inspection by outsiders.
3. Choice of node. A wallet does not see the blockchain by itself; it connects to a network node. The node can be yours or someone else's, and a good wallet lets you choose.
4. Subaddresses. A primary Monero address starts with "4", subaddresses with "8". It is handy to create a separate subaddress for each payer, so the payments are not linked to one another. A subaddress is also what you enter when you decide to exchange BTC to XMR and receive the coins in your own wallet.
5. Updates. Monero changes its network rules through hard forks, and an outdated wallet stops sending transfers after one. An abandoned project is no good for storage.

Desktop wallets: Monero GUI and Feather

Monero GUI is released by the Monero developers themselves. It has two modes. In simple mode the wallet connects to a remote node on its own and is ready in a few minutes. In advanced mode it downloads the blockchain and runs your own node. The full Monero blockchain takes up more than 200 GB, the pruned version less than half of that, and the first sync takes anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days. After that, though, you tell nobody when and from where you open your wallet. The seed phrase in Monero GUI is 25 words long.

Feather is a light wallet from an independent team. It uses remote nodes by default, so it starts right away, and it can send the connection through built-in Tor. It has what a newcomer misses in the official wallet: a clear list of the coins in the balance, support for hardware wallets and a build for the Tails system. Feather creates new wallets with a 16-word phrase. The creation date is encoded in it, which makes restoring faster.

Which to pick? If this is your first wallet and you want to receive your first XMR today, go with Feather. If you are ready to set aside a drive and an evening for your own node, go with Monero GUI. You can move from one to the other at any time: the phrase is yours, and the wallet can be restored from it in any compatible app.

Mobile wallets: Cake Wallet and Monerujo

Cake Wallet started out as a Monero wallet for the iPhone and is still the best-known mobile option. Today it runs on iOS, Android and desktop and, besides XMR, holds bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and other coins. If you do not need the rest, the same developers offer the Monero.com app: the same wallet, for Monero only.

Monerujo is a wallet for Android only and for Monero only. It is one of the oldest mobile Monero wallets: it can hold several wallets at once and works with Ledger. There is nothing extra in it, and for many people that is the main argument.

One thing to remember about a phone: it gets lost, dropped and replaced more often than a computer. So keep only spending money on it, and write the phrase down on paper as soon as the wallet is created. A phone is handy for receiving small purchases, for instance when you need to buy Monero with USDT TRC20 and pay for something right away.

Monero hardware wallets: Ledger and Trezor

A hardware wallet keeps the keys in a separate device and signs transfers inside it. In that setup a computer with malware can show you the wrong address but cannot take the keys.

According to the list on the official Monero website, as of October 2026 the supported devices are:

• Ledger Nano S, Nano S Plus and Nano X, which work with Monero GUI, Feather, Cake Wallet and Monerujo;
• Trezor Model T, Safe 3 and Safe 5, which work with Monero GUI and Feather.

The device alone is not enough. The manufacturers' own apps do not display Monero, so you need a companion wallet from the table above: you see the balance and history in it, while the device does the signing. Coldcard, a favorite of bitcoin holders, will not work for Monero: it is a BTC-only wallet.

Two recent stories explain how to buy and update such devices.

• Buy from the manufacturer. On October 10 Ledger confirmed a hardware implant in a wallet bought from a reseller in Southeast Asia. A sealed box guarantees nothing.
• Do not trust urgent posts. On October 11 a link to a fake "migration" went out from Coldcard's official X account. The details are in our article on the Coldcard phishing post.

Own node or remote node: which to choose

A remote node is convenient, but its operator sees your IP address and the times when you connect and send a transfer. It does not see keys, balances or amounts: Monero hides those at the protocol level.

Your own node closes that leak as well. For everyday sums a remote node over Tor is enough, which is how Feather does it. For savings that nobody should be able to guess at, your own node makes sense. What exactly is visible on the Monero blockchain and what is not is covered in our article on whether Monero can be traced.

How to avoid downloading a fake wallet

Fake Monero wallets turn up regularly: in search ads, in app stores, on "mirror" sites. Stealing coins this way is easier than breaking the wallet itself.

• Type the site address by hand. The official addresses are getmonero.org, featherwallet.org, cakewallet.com and monerujo.io. The sponsored line above the search results is not the official site.
• Verify the checksum. The Monero website says outright that a corrupted archive can lead to lost funds. The list of hashes is signed with the developers' key, and the verification guide is on the same site.
• Go to the app store through the link on the wallet's site. A search inside the store can easily turn up a clone with a similar icon.
• Do not switch off your antivirus blindly. It sometimes flags the genuine Monero software, but check the file's hash first and only then add an exception.
• Do not type your phrase into websites. A "web wallet", a "balance check" or a "migration to the new version" with a field for a seed phrase is theft. How to keep the phrase safe is covered in our guide on the seed phrase.

Where not to keep Monero

• On an exchange. Withdrawals there can be halted and the coin itself delisted: several of the largest platforms have done so since 2024.
• In a wallet that does not support Monero. MetaMask and most bitcoin wallets cannot handle XMR: Monero has its own keys and its own address format. Coins sent "somewhere or other" will not arrive.
• In notes and screenshots. A phrase in the cloud or in your phone's gallery stops being a secret.

How to fund a Monero wallet with no exchange and no sign-up

Once the wallet is ready, all that remains is to get some XMR. The largest exchanges do not list the coin, so a swap is the simplest way: you give what you already have and receive Monero at your own address.

At VertEXchange this takes no account, email or phone number. You pick a pair, paste an address from your wallet, either the primary one starting with "4" or a subaddress starting with "8", and see the rate and the amount you will receive before you send anything. The coins go straight to your address: the service does not hold them.

• The fixed rate holds for about 15 minutes while the transfer is being confirmed.
• You can set a refund address: the coins go back there if the swap does not go through.
• The personal fields of an operation are deleted 24 hours after it completes.
• A support chat is on every page, and questions are resolved by the swap code.

The wallet shows incoming XMR right away, and you can spend it after 10 network confirmations, roughly 20 minutes later. The first time, send a small amount to test the whole path. Convenient directions are to exchange Ethereum to Monero or to go from Litecoin to Monero with no sign-up.

FAQ

What is the safest Monero wallet?

A Ledger or Trezor hardware wallet paired with Monero GUI or Feather: the keys never leave the device. Among software wallets, Monero GUI with your own node gives the most control.

What is the best Monero wallet for beginners?

Feather on a computer, Cake Wallet on a phone. Both are ready a few minutes after installation and do not require downloading the blockchain.

Does MetaMask support Monero?

No. MetaMask was built for Ethereum and compatible networks, and Monero has different keys and addresses. You need a wallet written specifically for Monero.

Can you store Monero on a Ledger or Trezor?

Yes. The list on the Monero website includes the Ledger Nano S, Nano S Plus and Nano X, as well as the Trezor Model T, Safe 3 and Safe 5. You use them through Monero GUI or Feather; Ledger also works with Cake Wallet and Monerujo.

How many words is a Monero seed phrase?

25 in the classic format, as in Monero GUI, or 16 in the newer one that Feather uses by default. Not every app understands a 16-word phrase, so check that a wallet supports it before you restore.

Do I need to download the whole Monero blockchain?

No. Feather, Cake Wallet and the simple mode of Monero GUI work through remote nodes. You need the whole blockchain only if you want your own node.

Will I need a new wallet after the FCMP++ upgrade?

You will not need a new one, but you will need to update the one you have. Addresses and phrases stay the same, and as of October 2026 no hard fork date has been set. We explained what will change in our article on the FCMP++ upgrade.