# Aztec vs Zcash

> Zcash gives users a choice between shielded and transparent payments on an independent network. Aztec extends that choice to applications, with private and public smart-contract logic.

Canonical: https://aztec.network/compare/zcash  
Type: Comparison  
Reviewed: 30 October 2026  
Publisher: Aztec Foundation

## Side by side

| | Zcash | Aztec |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Is the network unstoppable? | **No one can stop it.** Independent miners, an open improvement process, and more than one node implementation. | **No one can stop it.** Permissionless sequencers and provers run the network. Upgrades follow public governance rules with a timelock. L2BEAT assesses the rollup at Stage 2. |
| Is there a privacy backdoor? | **No backdoor.** Shielded transactions are private to the user, who alone decides whether to share a viewing key. Moving between pools can expose information. | **No backdoor.** Private functions execute on the user's device and the network verifies a proof. There is no network-wide decryption key, no validator that re-executes private inputs, and no co-signer. Public calls and their inputs are visible by design. |
| Do they have private smart contracts? | **Payments only.** The base protocol is private money, not general-purpose private and public smart contracts. | **Private + public contracts.** Noir contracts combine private state and functions with public ones, and anyone can deploy them. Contracts compose on Aztec and reach Ethereum through L1/L2 messaging. |
| Who can build and participate? | **Permissionless to use and operate.** Anyone can mine, run a node, or transact under the protocol rules. | **Permissionless to use, build, and operate.** Anyone can deploy contracts or participate as a sequencer or prover under the published protocol, staking, and hardware requirements. |
| Compliance approach | User-held viewing keys. A user can share a viewing key with an auditor or a counterparty; the protocol has no screening or disclosure mechanism of its own. | Selective disclosure at the application and user level. An application decides which facts it proves or publishes, and a user can share their own viewing keys with whoever they choose. No protocol-wide audit key, screening gate, or operator sits in the path of a transaction. |

## What Zcash does well

Shielded payments, user-controlled viewing keys, and an open protocol developed through the public ZIP process.

**The difference.** The distinction is the application design space: Zcash is private money, while Aztec supports contracts that combine private and public state.

## Sources

- [Zcash documentation: addresses and value pools](https://zcash.readthedocs.io/en/latest/rtd_pages/addresses.html)
- [Zcash Foundation: Zebra and the road through NU6.3](https://zfnd.org/zebra-zakura-and-the-road-through-nu6-3/)
- [Aztec: private and public state](https://docs.aztec.network/developers/docs/foundational-topics/state_management)
- [Aztec: privacy considerations](https://docs.aztec.network/developers/docs/resources/considerations/privacy_considerations)
- [Aztec: governance voting](https://docs.aztec.network/participate/token/voting)
- [L2BEAT: Aztec Network](https://l2beat.com/scaling/projects/aztecnetwork)

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Markdown representation of https://aztec.network/compare/zcash. Published by Aztec Foundation.