Clients
Overview
This table compares the features of the different clients. All of the listed clients are open-source.
Feature key
- Wallet Security
- How well the client protects your private keys from people with access to the machine the wallet is stored on. The private keys can be encrypted, for example.
- Network Security
- Clients which more fully implement the Bitcoin network protocol are safer -- they can't be as easily tricked by powerful attackers. A client which fully implements the protocol will always use the correct block chain and will never allow double-spends or invalid transactions to exist in the block chain under any circumstances. Clients which only partially implement the protocol typically trust that 50% or more of the network's mining power is honest. Some clients trust one or more remote servers to protect them from double-spends and other network attacks.
- Setup Time
- Some clients require that you download and verify a large amount of data before you can send or receive BTC.
- Maturity
- When the project was started.
Table
| Client | Get Started | Audience | Wallet Security | Network Security | Backups | Setup Time | Disk Space | Maturity | Multi-user | Available for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Armory | Download | Power users | Encryption | Addon | One-time | Varies | 2+ GB | Jul 2011 | Multi-wallet |  
|
| Bitcoin Wallet | Download | End-users | Isolated | Partial | Manual | 1 hour | 30 MB | Mar 2011 | No | 
|
| Bitcoin-Qt | Download | End-users | Encryption | Full | Manual | Hours | 2+ GB | May 2011 | No | 
|
| bitcoind | Download | Programmers | Encryption | Full | Manual | Hours | 2+ GB | Aug 2009 | Virtual accounts |
|
| Electrum | Download | Power users | Encryption | Minimal | Memorized | Minutes | 5 MB | Nov 2011 | No |
|
| MultiBit | Download | End-users | None | Partial | No | 1 hour | 50 MB | Jul 2011 | Multi-wallet |
|
| My Wallet | Web-based | Everyone | Encryption | Remote | Automatic | Minutes | None | Dec 2011 | Yes | 
|
For developers
This table shows additional information about various Bitcoin clients that may be relevant to developers.
| Client | Website | Source Code | License | Discussion | Architecture |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Armory | Link | Github | AGPLv3 | Bitcointalk | Integrated |
| Bitcoin Wallet | Link | Google Code | GPLv3 | None / Google Groups | SPV |
| Bitcoin-Qt / bitcoind | Link | Github | MIT | Sourceforge | Integrated |
| Electrum | Link | Gitorious | GPLv3 | Sourceforge | Server-Client |
| MultiBit | Link | Github | MIT | Google Groups | SPV |
| My Wallet | Link | Github | BSD* | None | Server-Client |