# P-H-C/phc-winner-argon2

The password hash Argon2, winner of PHC

Repository: https://github.com/P-H-C/phc-winner-argon2
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/phc-winner-argon2
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Last push: 2024-08-06T13:28:45+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 23/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3986, "days_push": 757, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 5358, forks 462 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:15.995775+00:00)

## What it is
The reference C implementation of Argon2, the winner of the Password Hashing Competition, providing memory-hard password hashing with Argon2i, Argon2d, and Argon2id variants. It builds as a static/shared library plus a command-line utility for hashing passwords and deriving keys.

## Use cases
- hash passwords for secure credential storage
- derive encryption keys from passwords
- protect against GPU cracking attacks
- resist side-channel timing attacks when hashing passwords
- benchmark memory-hard hashing on my system

## When to choose
- you need the standard, battle-tested Argon2 implementation in C
- you are storing user passwords and want memory-hard hashing
- you need password-based key derivation resistant to tradeoff attacks

## When to avoid
- you need a high-level API in another language (use a binding instead)
- you need fast, non-password hashing like SHA-256 for data integrity
- you need FIPS-certified cryptographic primitives

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: cryptography, security, auth
- domain: security, developer-tools
- platform: windows, cross-platform, cli
- tags: password-hashing, argon2, memory-hard, key-derivation, phc-winner, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- P-H-C/phc-winner-argon2 (main) score 23

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:15.995775+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:58:46.301366+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/P-H-C/phc-winner-argon2 (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:15.995775+00:00, sha 4d332690ca49)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.