John the Ripper
Long-running open-source password cracker for auditing hashes from Unix, Windows, apps, archives and more.
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About John the Ripper
John the Ripper is one of the oldest password security auditing tools, made by Openwall. Admins and penetration testers feed it password hashes and it tries wordlists, mangling rules and brute force to find weak passwords; people also use it to recover the password of their own encrypted ZIP, PDF, Office file or SSH key. The community "jumbo" version supports hundreds of hash and cipher types, from Linux and macOS logins to WiFi captures, BitLocker volumes and cryptocurrency wallets, and its helper scripts (zip2john, office2john and so on) turn files into hashes it can attack. It's a free, open-source command-line program for Linux, macOS, Windows and other systems, usually built from source or installed from a distribution's packages. Openwall also sells John the Ripper Pro packages for Linux and macOS and offers a ready-made cloud image. It only works on hashes you already have and is meant for systems you're authorised to test.
Best for: Security auditors and admins who need one cracker that handles almost any hash or encrypted file format.
Pros and cons
What works
- Supports hundreds of hash and cipher types, including archives and disk images
- *2john helper scripts extract hashes from files like ZIP, PDF and SSH keys
- Free and open source, packaged by most Linux distributions
- Runs on CPUs, GPUs and many operating systems
Why people leave
- Command-line only, with a learning curve for rules and modes
- Official binary releases are old; the site recommends building from GitHub
- Usually slower than Hashcat for GPU-heavy cracking of common hashes
Top John the Ripper alternatives
See all 2- 1
Hashcat66.5GPU-first cracker that is usually much faster on common hashes, with over 720 hash modes.
- 2
Hash Suite62.6Windows GUI from a John the Ripper contributor, with reports and an easier setup.
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John the Ripper: common questions
Is John the Ripper free?
Yes. John the Ripper is free, open-source software.
Is John the Ripper open source?
Yes. The source code is on GitHub at openwall/john.
What platforms does John the Ripper run on?
John the Ripper is available for Windows, macOS and Linux.
What are the best alternatives to John the Ripper?
The highest-ranked John the Ripper alternatives right now are Hashcat and Hash Suite. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.