Security

Compare Hash Algorithms Side by Side

Hashes the same input with all five algorithms at once, which is how you work out which one produced a checksum you were given.

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How to use this tool

  1. Paste the text you want hashed.
  2. Select Hash with all five.
  3. Match the unknown checksum by length first: 32 hex characters is MD5, 40 SHA-1, 64 SHA-256, 96 SHA-384, 128 SHA-512.
  4. Change one character of the input and run it again to see how completely every digest changes.

What hash comparison does

Checksums are published far more often than they are labelled. A release page gives you a long hexadecimal string and no algorithm name, and the only way to check the file is to guess which one it is. Length settles it faster than guessing: 32 hexadecimal characters is MD5, 40 is SHA-1, 64 is SHA-256, 96 is SHA-384 and 128 is SHA-512.

This page hashes your input with all five and shows the digests together, so you can match against the string you were given by eye. It also makes the avalanche property visible in a way a single digest does not: change one character of the input and every digest changes completely, which is exactly what makes a hash useful for detecting a corrupted or tampered file.

Frequently asked questions

By its length. 32 hexadecimal characters is MD5, 40 is SHA-1, 64 is SHA-256, 96 is SHA-384 and 128 is SHA-512. That identifies it before you compute anything; this page then lets you confirm by matching the actual value.

That is the avalanche property, and it is deliberate. A one-bit change in the input should change about half the bits of the output, so that similar inputs give unrelated digests. It is what makes a hash useful for spotting a file that differs in a single byte.

Not usually. SHA-512 works on 64-bit words, so on 64-bit hardware it is often slightly faster despite the longer output. Choose based on what the other end expects rather than on performance.