# Octav vs CoinLedger: Live Portfolio vs Tax Tool

> CoinLedger is crypto tax software; its portfolio tracker is a filing by-product. Octav is the live, decoded multi-chain portfolio data that feeds tools like it.

- **URL:** https://octav.fi/blog/octav-vs-coinledger
- **Published:** 2026-07-24
- **Updated:** 2026-07-27
- **Author:** Octav Team — Portfolio Intelligence for Digital Assets
- **Topic:** Benchmarks & Comparisons
- **Tags:** comparison, portfolio-tracker, tax
- **Source:** Octav, Practical guides on crypto NAV reporting, multi-chain portfolio management and digital asset APIs, from the team behind Octav.

---
CoinLedger markets a "portfolio tracker," but it is a **crypto tax product**
first — its tracking is a by-product of cost-basis accounting for filing. Octav
is a **live, decoded portfolio** across every chain and protocol. They are not
really competitors: Octav is the accurate data source, and it
[exports straight into CoinLedger's format](/export-crypto-transactions-tax-software)
when it is time to file.

If you are choosing what to *see your portfolio in*, that distinction decides it.

<VersusLogos opponent="CoinLedger" logo="/platforms/coinledger.png" />

## A tax tool is not a live portfolio API

Tax software is built to reconstruct historical cost basis from transactions and
produce a filing. It is not built to decode, in real time, what a wallet holds
right now across dozens of protocols — lending, LP, staking, vaults, perps and
options — and value each position at the current price. Those are different jobs
with different engines.

That is why a tax tool's "tracker" tends to read on-chain DeFi shallowly. It
does not need deep live decoding to do taxes; Octav's entire product is deep
live decoding.

| | CoinLedger | Octav |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Primary job | Crypto tax filing (cost basis) | Live decoded portfolio (API + app) |
| Real-time DeFi decoding | Shallow | Full — lending, LP, staking, vaults |
| Options / perps / Solana DeFi | No | Fully decoded |
| Benchmarked coverage | Not measured | 100 coverage, 100 DeFi decoding |
| Relationship | Consumes Octav's export | Feeds the tax tool |

## The same data in the API or the app

Everything the Octav API returns is in the app too, free to use at
[pro.octav.fi](https://pro.octav.fi/). Search any address for the full decoded
portfolio across every chain it touches.

![The Octav app decoding a wallet across 48 chains and dozens of protocols — the same data the API returns](./images/octav-pro-board.jpg)

That is a live portfolio — 48 chains, Aave, Yearn, Euler, Uniswap and Hyperliquid
positions decoded individually. A tax product shows you last year's disposals;
Octav shows you what the wallet holds now, and it is the only tool in our
[benchmark](/crypto-portfolio-api-benchmark) that also decodes options, perps
and Solana DeFi.

## Use both, in the right order

The clean workflow is Octav for the data, your tax tool for the filing:

1. Octav decodes and prices the full multi-chain history and live positions.
2. Export it in CoinLedger's exact CSV schema — or Koinly, TaxBit, and seven
   others — from [the transactions exporter](/export-crypto-transactions-tax-software).
3. File in the tool you already use.

## Which should you pick?

- **CoinLedger** — when your job is filing a crypto tax return.
- **Octav** — when you want an accurate live portfolio across DeFi, options,
  perps and Solana, as an API or a free app — and the clean data that feeds the
  filing.

See it on any wallet at [pro.octav.fi](https://pro.octav.fi/), or read the
[benchmark](/crypto-portfolio-api-benchmark).