Re: [Discussion] Changing PASSWORD_DEFAULT to Argon2

On Sat, Sep 19, 2026 at 11:00 PM Anton Smirnov <sandfox@sandfox.me> wrote: > > My point is mostly about this part: > > > Argon2 for settings that are reasonable for interactive > > authentication is worse than BCrypt > > Like, if there were any successful attacks on bcrypt that negate that part > Yes and no. That part was based on a tweet from 2019, based on many unknowns (parameters, hardware, worse by how much, etc.) very broadly saying sub-1000ms. By 2023, we have slightly more clarity and comparable strenghts at just over 500ms: https://infosec.exchange/@epixoip/110912922574721750 (note that it looks somewhat scary because of the large memory cost, but time cost is always 1; very different from PHP's defaults) At that same time the bar is described as anywhere between sub40-100ms for bcrypt and above 400-1000ms argon2, I guess with no clear winner in between? https://infosec.exchange/@sc00bz/110228557196895869 In the meantime, all of this benchmark-centric talk is missing the forest for a tree, as cracking either algorithm is practically infeasible but vanilla bcrypt has more serious issues relevant to the average developer: https://soatok.blog/2024/11/27/beyond-bcrypt/ All of the "bcrypt is stronger for auth" people have their own versions of how to solve its non-computational weaknesses too, they do recognize the problem, but people who care mostly about benchmarks and maths will only talk about the benchmarks and maths. :) This can be a very contentious subject, and I don't want to go down the rabbit hole if the much simpler matter of dependencies would kill the argument anyway, hence my original question. If for a moment we assume Argon2id is better, can we rely on OpenSSL for default? Cheers, Andrey.