High-performance Lightning. Customizable to meet enterprise needs.
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Want to run a node on our infrastructure while retaining the keys on your own device?

Explore Greenlight

Fast To Compile, Easy To Set Up.
Customizable To Meet Enterprise Needs

Set up P2P dual-funded channels

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CLN is the first Lightning implementation to support decentralized dual-funded channels.

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Pay less to set up and run your node through balanced channels. CLN is efficient with your money and time.

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Immediately route and receive payments upon opening channels. Rebalance your channels using on-chain assets through PeerSwap.

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Benefit from added privacy

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Blinded payment paths (experimental) maintain the privacy of CLN nodes when receiving payments. Never dox your node IP address or public key again.

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Automatically increase privacy by using multi-part payments and randomizing selection of paths.

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Select diversity of channels to help defend against deanonymization techniques.

Tailor your node based on your
business needs

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Power-up your CLN node with plugins written in any popular programming language.

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Spec-driven development maintained by the research team at Blockstream.

Browse All Plugins
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Implementation Core Lightning LND Eclair
Codebase C and Rust Go Scala
Architecture Fully Modular, with plugin model Monolithic Monolithic, with plugin model
Privacy Multi-Part Payments on by default
Route Randomization
Shadow Route
Full Tor Support
BOLT12 (upcoming)
Optional Multi-Part Payments
Full Tor Support
Optional Multi-Part Payments
Optional Trampoline Payments
Full Tor Support
Automation Full automation with CLBOSS plugin Limited automation None
Backups Backup plugin supports many backup techniques Mnemonic for on-chain funds, Static Channel Backups for off-chain funds Dat file for on-chain funds, sqlite or Postgres database for channel state
Liquidity Management P2P with Liquidity Ads Centralized with Lightning Loop, Pool Manual
Collaborative Channel Opens Supported, automatic with Liquidity Ads Manually done with PSBTs Early support
Multi-Channel Peers Yes (new since v0.11.0) Yes Yes
Submarine Swaps Boltz.exchange plugin PeerSwap for P2P swaps Lightning Loop, Pool PeerSwap for P2P swaps Early PeerSwap support
APIs GRPC interface (plugin) JSON-RPC GRPC interface REST-API JSON-API

Wield Powerful Features With Full Control

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Open balanced channels directly with peers automatically

  • Leverage the peer-to-peer gossip protocol to see source liquidity for your node
  • End the reliance on centralized servers to coordinate liquidity
  • Earn routing fees
Explore Liquidity Ads
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Native static invoices: no web server required

  • Authorize spontaneous payments with proof of payment and recurring payments
  • The basis for multisig Lightning nodes in the future
  • Set up dollar-cost averaging over Lightning
Explore BOLT12
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Autopilot for your CLN node

  • Authorize spontaneous payments with proof of payment and recurring payments
  • The basis for multisig Lightning nodes in the future
  • Set up dollar-cost averaging over Lightning
Explore CLBOSS

Core Lightning (previously c-lightning) is a lightweight, highly customizable and standard compliant implementation of the Lightning Network protocol.

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All rights reserved.

Discussion Forum

The official Core Lightning forum is coming soon!

BuildonL2 Community

The official BuildOnL2 community lives at community.corelightning.org. Join us and build the future of bitcoin on lightning.

Mailing List

For general discussions about CLN implementation, use c-lightning@lists.ozlabs.org. For the Lightning Network, use lightning-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org

Telegram

Community-driven telegram group where most of the node operators hang out. Go to https://t.me/lightningd to join.

Discord

Community-driven discord server where the devs flock together. Go to https://discord.gg/w27fMFESMN to join.

Internet Relay Chat

Don't hesitate to reach out to us on IRC at #lightning-dev @ libera.chat, #c-lightning @ libera.chat.