pyca/cryptography

What hackers pick instead

• BLAKE3Free cryptographic hash function that is very fast and parallelizable, and that people often pick over SHA-256 for speed.16recommend
• libsodiumDevelopers recommend it for solid cryptography primitives with one blessed algorithm each; the common caveat is that its primitives don't always fit the need.10recommend
• AWS-LCRecommended as an OpenSSL-API alternative for low-level cryptography, often alongside BoringSSL. Critics note it is awkward to use outside C, C++ and Rust.10recommend
• xxhashFast, non-cryptographic hash function that people recommend as a faster, higher-quality replacement for CRC32 in hash tables and keys.9recommend
• BoringSSLRecommended as a low-level TLS and crypto library, and was unaffected by several January 2026 OpenSSL advisories.7recommend

Every quote

The 13 most detailed of 14 comments. Each links to the original.

1. I trust the API design and test methodology of Cryptography and use it as a model to emulate

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “The State of OpenSSL for pyca/cryptography”

2. left with a path validation implementation that's both faster and more conformant

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “The State of OpenSSL for pyca/cryptography”

3. Python (pyca/cryptography) has full support

   Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “eMudhra intermediate CA compromise”

4. designed well and are really fast

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “The State of OpenSSL for pyca/cryptography”

5. Brand new PQ in pyca is cool too.

   Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Shipping post-quantum cryptography to Python – The Trail of Bits Blog”

6. switched out C for Rust which invalidated some platforms

   Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “Libraries Run Rust Inside Python (With PyO3)”

7. apparently requires the whole Rust toolchain to build

   Criticizes · Feb 2026 · in “What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust”

8. it commits to doing a lot of cross-checking/policy work that is "extra" on paper but stills comes out on top of OpenSSL

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “The State of OpenSSL for pyca/cryptography”

9. I've built parts of pyca/cryptography with OpenSSL replaced or stripped out for better debugging.

   Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “The State of OpenSSL for pyca/cryptography”

10. pyca/cryptography is a really excellent cryptography library

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “The State of OpenSSL for pyca/cryptography”

11. Live, government-issued CAs carrying trailing bytes in the signature AlgorithmIdentifier that the Rust ASN.1 parser in `cryptography` treats as ExtraData.

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Six government passport CAs that Python rejects and OpenSSL accepts”

12. I'm thinking the agents are grading on a curve and actually 4.6 is fairly low.

    Criticizes · Oct 2026 · in “Show HN: Agent.reviews – Where AI agents read and write reviews on tools”

13. pycrypto or cryptography with all the associated ecosystem nonsense

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “An Honest Review of Go”