TLDR: Best for beginners
Kraken offers beginners a convenient and straightforward way to buy, sell and trade crypto with a secure and accessible exchange. It is more expensive than Binance regarding trading fees and crypto purchasing fees, but we think Kraken’s simplicity and convenience are worth the extra bit of capital.
TLDR: Best for experienced users
Few advanced exchanges can trump Binance, and it’s our recommendation for experienced traders. Binance is cheap, secure and full of advanced features that can help you maximise your cryptos potential. It has one of the best staking platforms and many other extras that Kraken doesn’t have, like a crypto Visa card, NFT marketplace, and non-custodial wallet service.
Introduction
Every crypto exchange is built differently and developed with different traders and target markets. Some might only be designed for experienced and professional traders and will be packed with advanced features and tools to give traders a chance to maximise their cryptos potential. Others will be beginner-focused and be developed with simplicity at its core, having fewer features that will less experienced traders focus on the fundamentals of crypto trading. Choosing an exchange can be quite difficult, but with this comparison review, we hope to make it a little bit easier for you.
Binance is one such exchange that has predominantly been developed for adept and professional traders. It also has a beginner-focused exchange available through its mobile app, called Binance Lite, but its masterpiece is its primary advanced and feature-packed exchange. Kraken has a little bit of everything; it caters to beginners, intermediate traders looking to move into more advanced trading, and experienced and advanced traders, but which exchange is better?
Summary: Kraken vs Binance
| Kraken | Binance | |
| Fees | 0.16%/0.26% Maker/taker. 1.5% crypto purchase | 0.1%/0.1% Maker/taker. 0.5% crypto purchase |
| # of Assets | 110 cryptocurrencies and 587 trading pairs | More than 405 and 1400 trading pairs |
| Supported Fiat Currency | USD, EUR, CAD, JPY, GBP, CHF, AUD | 46 fiat currencies, including USD, EUR, AUD, GBP, HKD, and INR |
| Funding methods | Cryptocurrency and fiat (SEPA, credit/debit card, wire transfer, SEN, SWIFT) | Cryptocurrency and fiat (SEPA, credit/debit card, wire transfer) |
| Ease of Use | MadCrypto rating: 9/10
Very beginner-friendly desktop and mobile app. Advanced trading platform for more experienced traders |
MadCrypto rating: 7/10
Advanced platforms, primarily for experienced traders. A beginner-friendly mobile app called Binance Lite |
| Trading Features | Limit order, market order, stop loss, take profit, stop loss limit, take profit limit, margin and futures trading, OTC trading | Limit order, market order, stop-limit order, stop market order, trailing stop order, post-only order, limit TP/SL order, spot trading, margin and leverage trading, futures, and options. |
| Customer Support | Help centre, 24/7 live chat and phone support | Help centre, 24/7 live chat support |
| Staking | Flexible staking for 12 coins with up to 23% APY on selected coins. | Flexible and locked staking for 182 coins, with more than 100% APY on selected coins. Binance Savings, De-Fi staking, Launchpool & Liquid Swap are also available. |
Fees Comparison
| Tier | Kraken | Binance | ||
| Maker | Taker | Maker | Taker | |
| $0 – 10K | 0.16% | 0.26% | 0.10% | 0.10% |
| $10K – 50K | 0.16% | 0.26% | 0.10% | 0.10% |
| $50K – 100K | 0.14% | 0.24% | 0.10% | 0.10% |
| $100K – 1M | 0.12% | 0.22% | 0.10% | 0.10% |
| $1M – 5M | 0.04% | 0.14% | 0.09%(BNB Balance ≥25) | 0.10%(BNB Balance ≥25) |
| $5M – 20M | 0.02% | 0.12% | 0.08%(BNB Balance ≥25) | 0.10%(BNB Balance ≥25) |
Explanation + Additional fees
When talking about fees, we mainly look at the trading fees associated with trading crypto. Most, if not all, exchanges use a maker/taker fee model for trading. In simple terms, being a maker means adding liquidity to the market, so the blockchain benefits, and you will be charged a smaller fee. A taker is the opposite and takes liquidity away from a blockchain; thus, the fee is always more. Most of the time, it’s impossible to know if you’ll be a maker or taker before commencing a trade.
Additional fees include crypto purchasing fees, which, most of the time, in our experience, are higher the easier it is to buy crypto on an exchange. You are paying for convenience, as without a crypto exchange, it would be challenging to conduct such complex tasks.
Binance is notorious for having some of the lowest trading fees on the market, with maker/taker fees capped at 0.10%/010%. Kraken doesn’t fare too badly, though, capped at 0.16%/0.26% for the same fees. Regarding crypto purchasing fees, Binance is a third cheaper than Kraken at 0.5% per purchase compared to Kraken’s 1.5%. So, if fees are a deciding factor, Binance would be the best choice for you.
Assets And Pairs Comparison
Binance, with one of the most significant trading volumes on the market, offers more than 405 cryptocurrencies and more than 1400 trading pairs. Kraken has around three-quarters less, with 110 cryptocurrencies and more than 550 trading pairs. Binance’s coin offering includes the top 10 coins by market cap, including its native tokens, Binance Coin (BNB) and its stable coin, Binance USD (BUSD). Kraken offers 8 of the top 10 coins, excluding Binance’s native tokens. Both exchanges would be a great choice if you’re looking at buying or trading the most popular cryptocurrencies, but Binance might hold those lesser-known gems that haven’t unlocked their full potential.
Funding Methods Comparison
Both exchanges support funding from fiat and crypto wallet sources. Kraken is limited in its fiat currency funding support as it only supports the top economies, including USD, EUR, CAD, JPY, GBP, CHF, and AUD. Binance has support for 46 fiat currencies, including currencies like the Uganda Shilling (UGX) and the Philippine Peso (PHP). So Binance would appeal to countries where crypto isn’t as accessible. Still, both exchanges would suffice for users in most major economies, with support for SEPA payments and debit/credit purchases opening multiple ways to fund your account.
Crypto deposits are simple with Kraken and Binance. With the more extensive offering, naturally, Binance will have a broader range of cryptos supported for funding. Deposits are free on both exchanges too, but each has different minimum deposit thresholds.
Platform & Ease of Use Comparison
The importance of ease of use from an exchange and the features and tools will purely be based on what you need for your trading strategy. Beginners will benefit from both exchanges as Binance offers a beginner product called Binance Lite, whereas Kraken has been designed with beginner traders at the forefront of its development.
Kraken offers beginners a basic spot exchange and a simple way to buy, sell and trade crypto. It also lets beginners switch to an advanced mode where you can trade crypto-to-crypto without the advanced charts and features that a beginner may find confusing. This is an excellent way for beginners to transition into the more advanced crypto world once they get to the basics of buying and selling.
Beginners can also use Binance Lite to buy and sell crypto, but it is only available via a mobile app, which may limit some. We found it as easy to buy crypto as it was with Kraken, but there is still an advanced element to it, and we would recommend trading with Kraken first before trying Binance.
Binance’s advanced trading platform is hard to beat. It is feature-packed, and the trading interface comes in two views: classic and advanced. This benefits intermediate traders as they can start from the classic view and transition to the advanced view after gaining some experience. Kraken Pro comes with a professional-grade interface with advanced charting and drawing tools. It’s intuitive and easy to use, but we can’t help but feel that Binance offers a better advanced user experience.
Trading Features Comparison
Trading features can come in many shapes and forms. Most advanced and experienced traders base their choice of exchange on how many features it has. It’s often the opposite for beginners, as more features mean you need to spend more time learning about them before you can understand the basics of crypto trading. Therefore, many exchanges have advanced trading platforms and beginner-orientated platforms.
Binance has 7 order types, basic spot trading, margined futures contracts, leveraged tokens, and options. Its advanced charting features are hard to beat, with more than 100 indicators and 80 other tools that help you get the most out of your crypto analysis. Kraken has 7 order types, spot trading, margin trading, and futures trading. Its advanced chart only has 31 indicators though and basic drawing tools. Binance has the edge here, but Kraken would still cater to advanced traders’ needs; it all depends on how advanced you want to go.
Binance Lite is its answer to offering a beginner-friendly exchange in its predominantly advanced ecosystem. It lets users easily buy and sell crypto. Kraken comes standard with an easy-to-use interface available on desktop and mobile apps. It allows users to buy, sell and trade crypto, and we think it’s the better starting point for beginners and intermediate traders looking to transition into more advanced trading.
Customer Support Comparison
From personally testing each customer support feature from Binance and Kraken, we really couldn’t say if one is better than the other. Both offer live support; only Kraken offers it via live chat and telephonically, whereas Binance only has it via live chat. We found both to be helpful and quick in resolving our issues. You can also access hundreds of articles in the help centres focused on crypto-related topics and how-to guides for each exchange’s processes and features.
Staking Comparison
Binance has multiple staking tools, most of which are developed for advanced and experienced traders. It supports 182 coins with flexible and locked staking terms ranging from 5 to 120 days. The APY potential is more than 100% on some coins, and it lets you stake some of the more significant market cap coins like BTC and ETH.
Kraken isn’t as impressive, having only 12 coins available for staking. It is flexible, so you can unstake your crypto anytime without losing the rewards gained on it. APY potential ranges from 1% – 23% depending on the coin. Although not as extensive and attractive as Binance, Kraken staking is relatively easy. You can control it all from one central dashboard, making it a great option if you want to gain some staking experience. So, although Binance has the better staking feature, we think Kraken is a fantastic starting point for beginners.
Additional Features Comparison
Wallet Comparison
If decentralisation, privacy, and extra security are important to you, then Binance would be the better pick for a wallet service. It supports storage for thousands of coins, and you hold the private keys, so the chances of a hacker gaining access to your wallet are near impossible. Kraken does not offer a separate wallet service; user funds are stored in its corporate wallet. It is a less secure way of storing your crypto, but it is still stored offline by Kraken and insured should any breach or theft occur.
Cards
Binance offers a Visa card that allows you to bridge the gap between crypto and traditional fiat currency, letting you use your crypto for everyday spending. With the Binance Visa card, you can earn up to 8% cash back rewards on all crypto, depending on the amount of BNB you hold in your Binance crypto wallet. You can spend 12 different cryptos, including BNB, BTC, and ETH. Unfortunately, Kraken does not offer a Visa crypto card.
NFTs
Once again, Kraken can be ruled out of this race as it does not have an NFT marketplace. If you want to use an exchange with an NFT marketplace, we can’t recommend Binance enough. It has been around since the dawn of NFTs, so its wealth in development and NFT offerings is hard to beat. Binance only lets you purchase NFTs using ETH, BUSD, or BNB and has no fiat support.
Conclusion: The Winner
Beginner
We think Kraken is better for beginners as it offers a simpler and easier-to-use interface. Binance does offer more cryptocurrencies, but if you just want to learn how to buy, sell and trade crypto, Kraken’s crypto offering will be perfect.
The biggest downside to Kraken as a beginner is that the crypto purchasing fees are 3 times more than Binance, but this won’t matter as much if you’re seldomly buying.
Advanced
It’s always going to be tough to find a better exchange than, or comparison to, Binance. It’s one of the cheapest exchanges for trading, packed full of advanced features, and has one of the best staking packages on the market. Binance also has many more extras than Kraken does, such as a Visa crypto card, NFT marketplace, and separate wallet service.
Advanced users can still benefit from Kraken as it is a lot less advanced than Binance and could be a good steppingstone into more advanced crypto trading before taking on the more complex Binance platform.