Best Monero Wallets in 2026: Which XMR Wallet Should You Use?

“Which wallet should I use?” is still the most common question new Monero users ask, and the answer changed more in the last 18 months than in the five years before. Two well-known wallets left Monero entirely, hardware support widened, and the main wallets shipped steady updates ahead of the FCMP++ upgrade. This guide compares the options that are actually alive and maintained in late 2026, and explains how to pick one for your situation.

What makes a good Monero wallet

Monero wallets do more work than most crypto wallets. Because transactions are private, your wallet has to scan every new block with your private view key to find coins that belong to you. That makes a few properties matter more than usual:

• Local scanning vs server scanning. Most good wallets scan on your own device, so nobody else learns which outputs are yours. “Light” wallets hand your view key to a server that scans for you. That is faster, but the server operator can see your incoming transactions.
• Node choice. Every wallet talks to a Monero node. Being able to set your own node (or a trusted remote node, over Tor) is a big privacy plus.
• Open source and active maintenance. Monero has regular releases, and the coming FCMP++ upgrade will require wallet updates. An abandoned wallet is a liability.
• Seed format. You will see 25-word seeds (the classic format), 16-word Polyseeds (with the wallet’s birthday built in), and in some multi-coin apps 12-word BIP39 seeds. Know which one you have, because it affects where you can restore.

Key point: Your seed phrase is your wallet. The app is only software that reads the blockchain with your keys. If an app disappears, your coins do not, as long as you still have the seed.

Quick comparison of maintained Monero wallets

The getmonero.org downloads page also lists ANONERO, Monfluo and Unstoppable among locally syncing mobile wallets. They are less common, so check each project’s own site and release history before trusting it with real money.

Desktop: Feather Wallet

Feather is the desktop wallet most people on r/Monero recommend first. It is small, fast, open source and built around Monero only. Version 2.9.1, released on 2 November 2026, is built on Monero v0.18.5.1. That release fixed subaddress lookahead for 25-word seed restores, removed the old Mining and Bounties plugins, dropped 32-bit ARM Linux builds and raised the minimum macOS version to 14.

Why people like it:

• Polyseed by default. New Feather wallets use 16-word Polyseed backups that embed the creation date, so you never need to track a restore height.
• Coin control. You can freeze and thaw individual outputs, which is useful if you care about which coins are spent together.
• Tor built in and easy node switching.
• Hardware wallets. Ledger Nano S, Nano S Plus, Nano X, Stax and Flex, plus Trezor Model T, Safe 3 and Safe 5. The newer Trezor Safe 7 is not supported yet because it uses a new device communication protocol.

The trade-off is that Feather is desktop-only. If you want to transact from a phone, pair it with a mobile wallet for small amounts.

Desktop: Monero GUI and CLI

The official Monero GUI and CLI come from the core project and are always the first to support protocol changes. Version 0.18.5.4 “Fluorine Fermi” was released on 17 October 2026, a small fix on top of 0.18.5.3, which the project called “highly recommended”. Recent releases added support for the Ledger Flex (0.18.4.3) and Ledger Nano Gen5 (0.18.4.5).

The GUI offers three modes:

1. Simple mode connects to a remote node. Quick to start, less private.
2. Simple mode (bootstrap) uses a remote node while your own node downloads the blockchain in the background.
3. Advanced mode lets you run a full or pruned node and set every option.

Running your own node is the strongest privacy setup, but it needs disk space. As of October 2026 the Monero docs put a pruned node at roughly 105 GiB and a full node at about 265 GiB. An SSD makes a large difference to sync time.

The CLI (monero-wallet-cli plus monerod) is the same software without the graphical layer. It suits servers, scripts and people who want every command at hand.

Mobile: Cake Wallet

Cake Wallet is the most actively developed mobile Monero wallet and the default recommendation for beginners. It also supports Bitcoin, Litecoin, Zcash and other coins, and has a Monero-only sibling app, Monero.com.

Recent changes worth knowing:

• v6.5.0 (12 October 2026) updated its Monero core to v0.18.5.3, added a warning when a send would need several transactions (it suggests consolidating by sending to yourself first), and renamed its onion node to “Cake Wallet (Tor)”. If you used the old onion node, reselect it after updating.
• v6.2 (June 2026) added Trezor support for Monero.
• Ledger support for Monero arrived back in December 2024.
• Cake offers Polyseed, legacy 25-word and 12-word BIP39 seeds. A BIP39 Cake seed is convenient for multi-coin use, but other Monero wallets may not restore it, so note which type you chose.

Background sync is a practical advantage on phones, because Monero wallets that sit closed for months have a lot of blocks to catch up on.

Mobile: Monerujo, Stack Wallet and others

Monerujo is a long-standing open source Android wallet that only does Monero. It still works and supports Ledger, but its latest GitHub release (v4.1.7) dates from mid-2025, so updates have slowed. Watch for an update once FCMP++ gets a mainnet date; until then, treat it as fine for spending money rather than long-term storage.

Stack Wallet from Cypher Stack is an open source multi-coin wallet with local Monero scanning. It is a reasonable pick if you want one app for several privacy coins.

Edge syncs through a remote server, which makes it quick but means a server sees your incoming transactions. Use it only if you accept that trade-off.

Wallets that no longer support Monero

Old guides still recommend these, so check before you install anything:

• Exodus ended Monero support on 18 August 2025. Users can export their 12-word Exodus key or 25-word Monero mnemonic and restore it elsewhere.
• MyMonero went offline on 6 January 2026, and its stored data, including view keys held on its servers, was scheduled for permanent deletion on 6 February 2026. The project handed stewardship to Cake Wallet. If you still have a MyMonero seed, restore it in another wallet.
• Trezor Suite does not support Monero natively. Trezor devices work with Monero, but only through third-party wallets such as Feather or Monero GUI.

Warning: Fake “Monero wallet” apps appear in app stores from time to time. Install only from the official website or the store link that the official site points to, and verify signatures or hashes on desktop downloads where offered.

How to choose: four common profiles

A sensible pattern used by many experienced users is a “spending wallet” on the phone with a small balance, and a “savings wallet” on a hardware device or an offline computer. You top up the phone from savings when needed.

Before you move real money

1. Download from the official source. Use getmonero.org, featherwallet.org or the developer’s official store listing.
2. Write the seed down offline. Paper or metal, never a screenshot or cloud note.
3. Record the restore height or creation date if your seed is a 25-word seed. Polyseed users can skip this because the date is embedded.
4. Send a small test amount first and wait for it to unlock (about 10 blocks, roughly 20 minutes).
5. Practise a restore on a second device or after deleting the wallet file, so you know your backup works.

What FCMP++ means for your wallet choice

FCMP++ is the planned upgrade that replaces ring signatures with full-chain membership proofs. A stress-test network forked in early October 2026, but no mainnet date has been announced. When it is scheduled, every wallet will need an update to keep sending. In practice, that favours actively maintained wallets: Feather, Monero GUI/CLI and Cake Wallet all have regular release histories. Your seed backup remains the thing that matters most, so keep it safe and keep your app updated.

For more guides on setting up and troubleshooting wallets, browse the Wallets category. If you are new to Monero itself, start with Monero Basics.