Ross ROSS = Recommend OSS · open-source software intelligence for agents

pyca/pynacl

Python binding to the Networking and Cryptography (NaCl) library observed · 2026-08-28

github.com/pyca/pynacl · homepage · C · Apache-2.0 (permissive) observed · 2026-08-28

Health v2 · maintenance only

77/100

  • Activity 99
  • Release rhythm 35
  • Longevity 100

Flags: no_releases

How is this computed?

round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10) — computed 2026-09-02. Adoption (stars, forks) is never an input.

  • gap_med: n/a
  • age_days: 4940
  • days_rel: n/a
  • days_push: 8
  • n_releases_24m: 0

Full methodology

Adoption not part of the score

1205 stars · 263 forks observed · 2026-08-28

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

PyNaCl is a Python binding to libsodium, a fork of the Networking and Cryptography (NaCl) library. It provides high-level access to modern cryptographic primitives including encryption, signatures, hashing, and password hashing.

Use cases

  • encrypt and decrypt messages with secret-key or public-key cryptography in python
  • sign and verify data with digital signatures
  • hash passwords securely in python
  • derive encryption keys from passwords
  • compute message authentication codes (MACs)

When to choose

  • you need well-audited, easy-to-use cryptographic primitives in Python
  • you want libsodium's high-level crypto API from Python
  • you need authenticated encryption or Ed25519 signatures

When to avoid

  • you need low-level control over cipher primitives or custom protocols
  • you need TLS/SSL or X.509 certificate handling
  • you are working outside Python

Facets

library · maturity stable

cryptography security developer-tools python cross-platform libsodium nacl encryption digital-signatures key-derivation

1 source

Member repositories

RepositoryRoleHealth v2
pyca/pynaclmain77

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="pyca/pynacl")

Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00 · Report a problem