Hash Generator — MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-512 Online

Choosing the Right Hash Algorithm

Hash functions map arbitrary input data to a fixed-size digest. A good cryptographic hash is deterministic, fast to compute, and practically impossible to reverse or to find two inputs with the same output (collision resistance).

Algorithm	Output	Security	Use today?	Best for
MD5	128 bits (32 hex)	Broken	Non-security only	Checksums, cache keys, deduplication
SHA-1	160 bits (40 hex)	Deprecated	Legacy only	Git object IDs (legacy), old TLS certs
SHA-256	256 bits (64 hex)	Secure	Yes	Code signing, TLS, general hashing
SHA-384	384 bits (96 hex)	Secure	Yes	Higher-assurance contexts
SHA-512	512 bits (128 hex)	Secure	Yes	Faster than SHA-256 on 64-bit CPUs, HMAC keys

What hashing is NOT for

Password storage — raw SHA-256 is too fast; use bcrypt, scrypt, or Argon2 with a salt instead
Encryption — hashing is one-way; use AES-GCM if you need to decrypt later
Message authentication — use HMAC (keyed hash) to prevent tampering

How SubtleCrypto works

SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, and SHA-512 are computed using the browser's built-in crypto.subtle.digest() API — a native, hardware-accelerated implementation. MD5 is not available in SubtleCrypto (it is cryptographically broken), so it uses a pure-JavaScript implementation included in this page.