---
title: "Cerberus vs Other BFT Protocols"
path: "/contents/tech/comparisons/cerberus-vs-other-bft-protocols"
version: "1.3.0"
author: "Hydrate"
createdAt: "2026-02-19T05:51:32.343Z"
updatedAt: "2026-03-16T18:25:43.176Z"
---

# Cerberus vs Other BFT Protocols

<Infobox>
| **[Cerberus](/contents/tech/core-protocols/cerberus-consensus-protocol)** | Braided cross-shard [BFT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault) |
| **vs PBFT/HotStuff** | Single-shard BFT protocols |
| **vs [Tendermint](https://tendermint.com)** | Per-chain BFT ([Cosmos](https://cosmos.network)) |
| **Unique Property** | Atomic consensus across arbitrary shard sets |
</Infobox>

## Overview

[Cerberus](/contents/tech/core-protocols/cerberus-consensus-protocol) differs from other [BFT](/contents/tech/core-concepts/byzantine-fault-tolerance) protocols in a fundamental way: it enables **atomic consensus across arbitrary sets of shards**.

### Traditional [BFT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault) (PBFT, HotStuff, [Tendermint](https://tendermint.com))

These protocols achieve consensus within a single group of validators. They don't natively support cross-shard atomicity — any sharded system using them requires additional coordination layers that compromise either composability or performance.

### [Cerberus](/contents/tech/core-protocols/cerberus-consensus-protocol) Braiding

[Cerberus](/contents/tech/core-protocols/cerberus-consensus-protocol) forms dynamic consensus groups per-transaction, braiding across exactly the shards each transaction touches. A 3-phase commit protocol (pre-prepare, prepare, commit) ensures atomicity. The [Cerberus whitepaper](/contents/tech/research/cerberus-whitepaper) provides formal safety [proofs](https://docs.radixdlt.com/docs/authorization), and the [500k TPS test](/ideas/hyperscale-500k-test) validated linear scaling in practice.