Custom DeFi Aggregators Explained: Benefits, Challenges, and Development Tips

Key takeaways:

• DeFi aggregators streamline access to decentralized financial services by automatically sourcing the best trading, lending, or yield opportunities across multiple platforms.
• Businesses can leverage DeFi aggregators to increase efficiency, reduce transaction costs, and enhance the user experience in decentralized finance ecosystems.
• Whether it’s better to integrate an existing aggregator or develop a custom solution depends on your specific use case, scalability needs, and desired level of control.
• Custom DeFi aggregator development can be complex, but it unlocks better flexibility, increased security, and full alignment with your business goals.

Manually tracking token prices, liquidity, fees, and smart contract reliability across dozens of platforms can make your product harder to use and maintain. DeFi aggregators offer a more efficient way of managing cryptocurrencies, as they streamline access to multiple decentralized protocols through a unified interface or APIs. 

In this article, we explore what DeFi aggregators are, the benefits of integrating out-of-the-box DeFi aggregators and building custom ones, and key challenges in their development. This guide is intended for startup CEOs, FinTech executives, CTOs, and product leaders who want to get into DeFi without being limited to out-of-the-box solutions.

What is a DeFi aggregator and why do you need one?

Decentralized finance (DeFi) is a quickly growing ecosystem of financial applications built on blockchain technology. The DeFi ecosystem eliminates the need for traditional intermediaries because, instead of banks or brokers, DeFi relies on smart contracts. 

With new protocols appearing regularly, DeFi offers growing flexibility and financial opportunities. But it also increases operational complexity. Each protocol comes with its own architecture, APIs, transaction fees, and liquidity rules. Additionally, protocols operate on different blockchains, with little standardization. Managing DeFi integrations manually is time-consuming and error-prone, which makes it challenging to deliver a high-quality user experience. 

For companies building DeFi products, this lack of uniformity creates a double burden: the need to deliver a smooth, unified user experience while keeping development scalable and maintainable. As clients want more intuitive and responsive DeFi services, businesses have to find ways to stay flexible and competitive without exhausting their engineering resources.

DeFi aggregators solve the fragmentation problem. These platforms consolidate data and functionality from multiple DeFi protocols into a single streamlined interface. DeFi aggregators aren’t just a convenience; they are a strategic solution to creating smarter, faster, and more future-proof decentralized applications.

Depending on their focus, DeFi aggregators usually fall into the following categories:

• Yield aggregators. These platforms help users maximize returns by identifying and automatically deploying assets to the highest-yielding farming or staking opportunities across multiple protocols.
• Exchange aggregators. Often integrated with decentralized exchanges, these aggregators find the best token swap rates across multiple trading venues. They optimize trading routes across liquidity pools, split orders if needed, and minimize slippage.
• Lending aggregators. These tools allow users to compare interest rates across lending platforms, helping them choose where to borrow or lend assets for maximum benefit.
• All-in-one aggregators. These comprehensive platforms combine yield farming, token swapping, and lending features in one interface, providing a full DeFi experience in a single place.

Regardless of their focus, all DeFi aggregators share the same core purpose: simplifying access to decentralized finance and helping users and businesses make smarter financial decisions.

Understanding the mechanics of DeFi aggregators

DeFi aggregators serve several core functions: they gather and standardize data, compare offers across protocols, and, in many cases, even execute transactions on behalf of users through their own smart contracts.

Let’s break down the core technologies that make this possible.

Data aggregation engine

The data aggregation engine is the heart of a DeFi aggregator. It collects and unifies key financial metrics across different protocols, such as:

• Deposit and liquidation limits
• Staking rewards and bonus structures
• Interest rates for loans and deposits
• Token prices and exchange rates
• Pool sizes and liquidity levels
• Lists of supported tokens for lending and staking

This data isn’t just collected; aggregators also compare and rank data based on different metrics. For example, a user might want to find the highest staking yield for USDC. The aggregator can sort and display protocols in descending order of returns, helping the user optimize earnings with minimal effort.

However, finding and displaying data is only part of an aggregator’s functionality. A more advanced function of these platforms is interacting with protocols. Aggregators can perform operations like staking, providing liquidity, opening debt positions, or swapping tokens without requiring users to leave the interface or interact directly with each protocol.

Smart contracts

Most DeFi aggregators deploy their own smart contracts to interact with protocols on the user’s behalf. These contracts are typically deployed across multiple blockchains, such as Ethereum, Arbitrum, Binance Smart Chain, and Polygon, allowing for seamless cross-chain interactions.

Smart contracts allow aggregators to:

• Bundle multiple actions into a single transaction (for example, swap tokens and immediately stake them)
• Strengthen security by verifying transaction conditions and ensuring funds are transferred only if all parameters are met
• Optimize transaction routing across multiple liquidity pools to achieve the best execution path

Together, smart contracts contribute to efficient, secure, and automated interactions across diverse protocols.

Oracles

To provide accurate and real-time data, such as token prices or yield rates, aggregators have to rely on decentralized oracles. These include services like Chainlink, Pyth, RedStone, and Band Protocol. Oracles deliver current off-chain data to smart contracts, which allows aggregators to compare offers and execute transactions based on real market conditions. Without oracles, aggregators can’t ensure real-time accuracy, which severely limits their functionality and reliability.

Subgraphs

Subgraphs help aggregators access structured historical and on-chain data by indexing events and transactions from smart contracts. Instead of manually parsing contract events, an aggregator can connect to a subgraph and instantly retrieve information about liquidity pools, user balances, and transaction histories. 

While oracles deliver external real-time data, subgraphs focus on efficiently organizing and serving historical and on-chain data. For example, using historical token price data from a subgraph, users can track trends, such as a consistent decline in Bitcoin (BTC) value over the past three months, which can inform smarter decisions, like avoiding deposits in underperforming assets. Together, oracles and subgraphs allow aggregators to make informed comparisons, optimize routing, and improve both performance and scalability.

Now, let’s examine specific ways your operations can benefit from integrating a DeFi aggregator.

How can your business benefit from DeFi aggregators?

DeFi aggregators are not just tools for crypto enthusiasts. They offer significant value to businesses looking to build in the DeFi space. Here are some of the reasons why aggregators are worth considering as part of your product strategy.

Universal access point to DeFi. A DeFi aggregator can serve as a powerful backend engine of your product, as it offers seamless access to multiple protocols through a single, centralized interface tailored to your needs. Businesses can integrate DeFi aggregators as turnkey solutions to power:

• Crypto wallets with built-in DeFi functionality
• Financial dashboards or mobile apps for asset tracking
• White-label platforms for banks or FinTechs entering the crypto market

Simple integration. Instead of adapting your product to the limitations of third-party solutions, a custom DeFi aggregator allows you to define how data is collected, processed, and exposed. Your development team no longer has to integrate different APIs, RPC nodes, oracles, and subgraphs.

Cross-chain compatibility. Most networks, such as Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, BNB Chain, and Avalanche, already support multiple networks. They enable cross-chain functionality out of the box, so developers don’t have to reinvent the wheel for every blockchain they want to support.

Tailored security. Using a DeFi aggregator doesn’t mean compromising on security, as you retain full control over how transactions are handled. You can enforce your own security policies, run smart contracts under proprietary keys, set transaction limits, and audit third-party components to make sure the entire system meets your compliance and risk management standards.

Improved user experience. Aggregators simplify DeFi access by unifying core features like yield generation, token swaps, and portfolio tracking into a single interface. This streamlined UX reduces friction and increases user retention.

When planning a DeFi product, you have two main paths: integrate an existing aggregator or build a custom one from the ground up. Next, we will explore when it’s worth developing a custom DeFi aggregator and when you can integrate an existing one.

Integrating an existing aggregator vs developing a custom one

When building a DeFi-enabled product, teams often face a critical decision: should they integrate an existing DeFi aggregator or build one from scratch?

The best choice depends on your business goals, timeline, technical capacity, and product vision. Below are some key factors to help guide your decision.

Table 1. Custom vs off-the-shelf DeFi aggregators

Factor	Integrating an existing aggregator	Developing a custom aggregator
Time to market	✔️ Fastest option, ideal for MVPs or urgent releases	❌ Longer development cycle
Budget	✔️ Cost-effective (especially early on)	❌ Higher initial investment
Control over features	❌ Limited by external API and product vendor	✔️ Full control over logic and UX
Unique business logic	❌ Hard or impossible to implement	✔️ Support for custom strategies, pricing, and routing
Data freshness	⚠️ Limited control (depends on the third-party provider)	✔️ Full control, as you define how often and what data is updated and shown
Security and trust	⚠️ Requires trust in third-party infrastructure	✔️ Full control over audits, contracts, and risk management
Scalability	✔️ Good for simple use cases	✔️ Better long-term if you need to expand or white-label
Branding and UX	⚠️ Often limited to the provider’s layout and flows	✔️ Fully customizable UI and UX

You might choose to integrate an off-the-shelf product if:

• You need a working solution quickly, such as for a prototype or investor pitch
• You want to minimize development resources early on

Custom development might be a better choice if:

• You want full ownership of the aggregator’s logic, data flows, and system architecture
• Third-party providers can’t meet your business, compliance, or security requirements
• You aim to differentiate your product with unique DeFi functionality or a unique UX
• Your solution is expected to scale significantly and you want more control over performance and resource optimization
• The cost of using third-party aggregators increases with use and may become unsustainable as your platform grows
• You plan to maintain or expand your product long-term and want full flexibility over updates, protocol integrations, and roadmap decisions

You may face technical obstacles to realizing the full potential of custom DeFi aggregators. Let’s explore the most frequent issues and how to effectively address them.

Common challenges in DeFi aggregator development (and how to tackle them)

While the concept behind DeFi aggregators may seem straightforward, building and maintaining an efficient aggregator can come with technical, architectural, and operational challenges. Let’s take a look at the key issues your team might face:

1. Protocol diversity. Every DeFi protocol has its own architecture and behavior — for example, in terms of price calculation, transaction data structure, fees, and liquidity management. Also, protocols are constantly updated, and new contract versions may break existing integrations or introduce unexpected behavior. This lack of standardization creates significant development overhead when building or maintaining an aggregator.

How does the Apriorit team address protocol diversity? 

• Modular design. Build the aggregator so that each protocol is integrated as a separate module.
• Adapters. Use protocol-specific adapters to translate unique data and behavior into a standardized internal format.

2. Cross-chain complexity. Most aggregators operate across multiple blockchain networks. Supporting multiple chains introduces technical overhead. For example, your team needs to account for different block confirmation times, RPC reliability, gas mechanics, and tooling availability.

How does the Apriorit team address cross-chain complexity?  

• Abstract blockchain logic. Create a unified interface for interacting with various chains to simplify integration and reduce code duplication.
• External configuration files. Store chain-specific parameters, like block time, in configuration files to make updates easier and reduce hard-coded errors.
• Unified handling. Normalize interactions such as RPC calls, transaction formation, and event tracking across all networks to ensure consistency and easier maintenance of the system.

3. Performance and scalability. DeFi aggregators process and surface large volumes of real-time data, such as token prices, liquidity pool metrics, and user balances. Performance bottlenecks can arise from RPC node overload, slow subgraph indexing, or high backend loads during traffic spikes.

How does the Apriorit team address performance and scalability concerns?

• Caching. Cache static or slow-changing data with Redis or Memcached to reduce the load on backend systems and improve response times.
• Batching. Minimize individual requests by sending batch queries to RPC nodes and subgraphs to lower network overhead and speed up data aggregation.
• Data classification. Categorize data by update frequency to balance performance and data accuracy. For example, live prices will be updated frequently, while chart history can be cached longer. 

4. Security management. DeFi aggregators directly manage user funds, sign transactions, and interact with multiple external protocols, which makes them high-value targets. A single error in logic can result in financial losses, fund misrouting, or interaction with vulnerable third-party contracts.

How does the Apriorit team address security risks?

• Thorough security testing. Combine unit, integration, and E2E testing with simulations of market fluctuations and malicious scenarios.
• Due diligence. Vet every integrated protocol for lack of audits, code quality issues, smart contract vulnerabilities, and protocol reputation. 
• Fail-safes. Implement strong checks for every transaction step to prevent critical development errors. 

By applying these strategies, your teams can build high-performing, secure, and scalable DeFi aggregators that are ready for real-world use. Building a DeFi aggregator from scratch can be complex, but control over operations and security is worth it. And the right partner can make the process seamless. That’s where Apriorit’s blockchain expertise comes in.

How can Apriorit help?

Whether you’re launching a new DeFi platform or enhancing an existing product with decentralized functionality, Apriorit is your trusted partner in blockchain development. Here is what you can get from partnering with us:

We have years of experience delivering high-performance, secure, and scalable blockchain solutions to clients across the FinTech, automotive, and healthcare industries. Our experts have:

• Built secure and scalable blockchain infrastructure using AWS and other cloud platforms
• Developed decentralized marketplaces and financial services on leading blockchains like Tezos and Ethereum
• Evaluated and enhanced the security of smart contracts and DeFi platforms
• Created and deployed NFT smart contracts with custom minting and transaction logic
• Built and optimized a blockchain-powered platform to tokenize and trade carbon offset certificates for sustainability and transparency

Our experts will help you innovate with confidence in one of the fastest-growing tech segments.

Conclusion

As DeFi and blockchain ecosystems mature, there is a growing need for faster, safer, and more efficient ways to access decentralized financial tools. DeFi aggregators can simplify access to fragmented protocols, but building or integrating one can be challenging. It requires deep knowledge of smart contracts, blockchain architecture, cross-chain communication, and the nuances of security measures in decentralized environments.

At Apriorit, our blockchain development team has hands-on experience delivering scalable and secure solutions across many industries. We can help you transform a complex technical challenge into a competitive advantage and deliver reliable DeFi functionality that meets both market demands and long-term strategic goals.