Uniswap is a decentralized crypto exchange (DEX) and it's probably the most popular one in the world of DeFi. There's no order book here and all swaps are run by the automated matchmaker. Anybody can list any ERC20 tokens on Uniswap which makes it the perfect first exchange for startup projects.
Maker is the foundational element of the DeFi niche. Many people use Maker to convert ETH into DAI and proceed with their DeFi Strategies. MakerDAO is a stablecoin system with two coins - DAI (the stablecoin) and MKR (Maker; the governance token)
Aave is a DeFi lending platform. Here, users can lend and borrow cryptocurrencies in a completely decentralized and trustless manner. There's no AML/KYC process in place which democratizes lending. The project is 8 months old, but it has already garnered a lot of attention in DeFi.
Balancer is an innovative DEX that enables users to provide liquidity with ease. It's totally trust-less and on-chain. Anybody can exchange ERC20 tokens here.
Nexus Mutual is an insurance dapp within the DeFi universe. It doesn't have a lot of competition, and many DeFi netizens are all about x's and not insurance.
Compound Finance offers extremely high yields for lenders. In this Compound Finance tutorial, we'll show that it's very easy to use. You don't have to prepare in any way - there's no KYC process or verifications in place.
InstaDapp is an asset management platform. Here, you can interact with multiple DeFi platforms in a much easier way as to what you'd get when dealing with each of them individually. Originally, InstaDapp was created as just an interface to activate the functionalities of the underlying platforms.
Synthetix enables users to create the synthetic assets for any underlying. Anybody can do this. All operations are performed on chain with the use of smart contracts. No slippage for trading on the embedded DEX, and the fixed 0.3% fee for both market makers and takers.
Yearn.finance is a yield maximizer. The bot inside acts to shuffle your investments between different lending platforms, liquidity mining platforms and rewards systems. As a result, you win from the highest possible yields, currently obtainable in DeFi.
Read out a detailed review on Curve.fi with the tutorials into all the major processes here. Curve.fi offers amazing opportunities to trade stablecoins and wrapped-Bitcoin coins. And it needs a lot of liquidity to do that.