open-quantum-safe/liboqs

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: no_license

Adoption not part of the score

3044 stars · 765 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

liboqs is an open source C library providing implementations of quantum-resistant (post-quantum) key encapsulation mechanisms and digital signature algorithms behind a common API. It is the core of the Open Quantum Safe project under the Linux Foundation's Post-Quantum Cryptography Alliance, and includes test harnesses and benchmarking routines.

Use cases

• experiment with post-quantum key encapsulation mechanisms in C
• benchmark quantum-resistant signature schemes
• integrate NIST post-quantum algorithms like Kyber and Dilithium into prototypes
• test hybrid TLS with quantum-safe key exchange via the OQS OpenSSL provider
• evaluate memory and performance characteristics of PQ crypto implementations
• prototype lattice-based cryptography research

When to choose

• you need a common C API over many post-quantum KEM and signature implementations
• you are prototyping or researching quantum-resistant cryptography
• you want to benchmark PQ algorithms across platforms
• you are building PQ-enabled protocol integrations like TLS or X.509

When to avoid

• you need production-grade, fully hardened cryptography without expert review
• you want a high-level language library without C bindings (use liboqs-python, liboqs-go, or Rust crates instead)
• you need only classical cryptography
• you require a formally certified FIPS-validated implementation

Facets

library · maturity active

cryptography security benchmarking testing security developer-tools windows cross-platform cpp post-quantum-cryptography key-encapsulation digital-signatures lattice-based-crypto nist-pqc kem quantum-resistant cryptography research linux macos

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