Bitcoin Core is the canonical way to run Bitcoin
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We run it locally as part of our treasury infrastructure.
Pros
- Simple, secure access to the Bitcoin blockchain
- Open source, auditable and solid performance
- Send and receive Bitcoin immediately
Cons
- UX may seem clumsy the first time but it's getting better
- It may take days to download the blockchain depending on your disk and bandwidth speed, but that's by design
- Support for commercial hardware wallets is still missing, and I think they will keep it that way
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are not a technical user, you may use Umbrel as a wrapper to Bitcoin Core, which will install it and manage it for you.
