Bitcoin Forum

I know Armory and Electrum are both very safe, but from your experience in terms of the ease of use, do you think Armory is easier to navigate than Electrum?

electrum is very easy to use while armory on the other hand is little bit harder to use. it depends on person to person to choose a wallet of their choice.  if you are a power user then i recommend armory wallet for you. but if you want simplicity then you should use only electrum.  personally, i would choose electrum over armory. btw, this is just my opinion.

I haven't tried either of them.
The one that you can sign a message from would be a determining factor to the one to use.

both wallets are easy to use and offer good options, so it really depends on your preference to choose the one that you are comfortable with.

also keep in mind that Electrum is an SPV wallet but Armory is a full node so that may help you decide better.

Once in a while, Armory might become unresponsive - this is tied to your computer's configuration. If you are using a desktop, you might not encounter this but a low -end laptop user will come across this, at least once in his life. This is because armory is not  a lightweight app like Electrum

Electrum is better as is a SPV client and it is very safe. I never used Armory myself but if you are asking about a full node the best bet would be to use Bitcoin core. Its about 90 GB to download but its very much worth it as you can be very safe with it. Just add a strong passphrase and no hacker would want to hack 90 GB of a bitcoin wallet rather they will continue hacking online web wallets as they are much easy to hack.

So go with Electrum for speed or go with Bitcoin core for an extended safety. Forget about Armory, I don't know if this wallet is being supported by the developers anymore or not.

Armory's selling point isn't ease-of-use.

1. Security (cold storage)
2. Convenience (sign transactions offline)
3. Privacy (requires full node)

If the client you compare it to lacks any of those 3 features, then there is little point in comparison.

Since electrum is an SPV client, that means it's a thin wallet and your IP can be seen on the network. Not that your private keys will be exposed, just that your location can be seen.

Its very easy to utilize effective counter measures in terms of VPN's, or TOR prior to connecting to Electrum's servers.  I suspect you know this, but some newer folks considering the issue addressed in this thread may not.


Back to the thread discussion:  for me the notion of keeping a full node that Armory requires takes it out of the running.  I am very security aware so I do connect anonymously and utilize hardware wallets with Electrum.  I am also portable, which is facilitated by a small hardware wallet, and therefore would not have access to the full node on the fly.  Those are my takes and as mentioned by others, there are users that swear by Armory.  It is a good product, it just doesn't fulfill my needs.

Armory is designed for "enterprise" users of Bitcoin. While electrum is designed for "end users" of Bitcoin. Armory offers a different kind of privacy as you are using your full node to monitor for transactions in your wallet, although it will be difficult to hide the fact that you are using Bitcoin, even with tor.

Electrum on the other hand will leak the addresses in your wallet to the operator of the electrum server you are connecting to. You can counter this by running your own electrum server (and connecting to this server). It will be significantly easier to hide the fact that you are using Bitcoin with electrum. 

If you are going to run your own Electrum server than you are getting the full node.  At that point Armory enters as a great option.

Armory has features that can help your wallet be more secure such as key stretching (to help fight the use of GPus to Crack the key should it be captured giving you more time to create a new wallet and getting coins safe) that and no relying on a server to process your transactions. Electrum however is still a great choice for those who don't want to take up 32gb and growing space for two blockchains one for bitcoin-qt and one for armory. For most security armory over all. Both would be just as easy to spend and eviscerated coin.

Armory will make you more anonymous but electrum is much lighter to download. Both are safe... not as safe as paper wallets though.

yeah its just back to you, want easy to use ? using electrum or need more try armory

Since version 0.94 which was released by goatpig in March/April Armory no longer keeps it's own copy of the blockchain.

For me Electrum was my first and still my desktop wallet, it introduced me to bitcoin with ease and I don't need to change it as it has all I need, I am not after hiding my IP or the fact that I use bitcoins, all I need is a wallet that sends and recerives my bitcoins with a good security, and electrum has all that.

This is like comparing a spoon and a fork.

I use them both, they have their pros and cons.

Electrum is light, fast, and easily integrates with KeepKey.
Armory is slow (need a full node), slow and offer lots of advantages (offline transactions / better privacy).

What do you need the wallet for exactly ? what system are you using ?

Armory is a lot slower than Electrum, but they aren't meant to be compared.

Electrum is faster, light-weight, and dosen't require downloading the entire blockchain.

Armory is slower, extremly secure, and requires downloading the entire blockchain.

I haven't tried Armory but I seem to always run into syncing issues with Electrum for some reason.

I let Electrum sit for hours and it sits stuck on syncing sometimes for no reason at all it seems. I think Armory requires the full blockchain though which sounds like a pain.

I use both.  I store half of my coins on Armory, the other half on Electrum.  I don't know why...

Because you have no idea of what you are doing.

You need to understand and make a logical choice of the wallet you are using

I use electrum, it's very easy and dont need to download the whole blockchain  8)

I have used both and found for ease of use Electrum wins hands down,  But that said Armoury has its benefits to, it really depends what you are looking for.  I wouldnt say its better i would say it is different, your comparing different things.

Electrum isn't safe in regards to how easy your bitcoin will be stolen if someone can put their hands on your seed.
Armory  wins in this regard if you have n-m fragments wallet backup. You split the seed into multiple different paper backups and store them at different geographical locations. It's pretty much impossible to steal your bitcoin since you will need to steal all of the required fragmented paper backups to restore the wallet.

Armory is best in physical security. If setup right, Armory provide the kind of physical security that even hardware wallet like ledger and trezor can't compete with since all of them uses single seed for backup, single point of failure.

Both are equally good in cyber security if you utilize the cold wallets as it prevent hackers' cyber attacks.

Electrum is faster since it's not a full node wallet.