JEjedisct1·Apr 5, 2025
To quickly build something with signatures, key exchange and encryption, I'd recommend starting with libhydrogen: https://github.com/jedisct1/libhydrogen
In Intuiting TLSjedisct1
libhydrogen
C2017–2025
jedisct1 / libhydrogen
libhydrogen
A lightweight, secure, easy-to-use crypto library suitable for constrained environments.
8Distinct people
15Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
798GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
A lightweight, secure, easy-to-use crypto library suitable for constrained environments.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year15 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2017-02-14 00:59:27 UTC to 2025-04-05 08:25:45 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 2 | 5 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
15 sourcesdon't forget https://github.com/jedisct1/libhydrogen for microcontrollers
In Libsodium: A modern, portable, easy to use crypto libraryThis seems extremely similar to https://github.com/jedisct1/libhydrogen -- X25519 and Gimli. (well, and the name...). It also appears to pull from its test suite and aim for compatibility in some ways.
In Liblithium: A lightweight and portable cryptography libraryAre you possibly thinking of libhydrogen?
https://github.com/jedisct1/libhydrogen
In Ask HN: Are there small alternatives to libsodium/NaCLThere is also libhydrogen [1] which is a "small, easy-to-use, hard-to-misuse cryptographic library".
[1] https://github.com/jedisct1/libhydrogen/blob/master/README.m...
In Tink – Cryptographic APIs that are secure, easy to use correctlyThis is a historic API.
libhydrogen's API is different: https://github.com/jedisct1/libhydrogen/wiki/Secret-key-encr...
In AES-GCM-SIV: Nonce Misuse-Resistant Authenticated EncryptionTossing everything into a single file is not required.
You can use includes to have "a single file to add to the project", and still split your code in smaller, readable files.
See https://github.com/jedisct1/libhydrogen for example. It's a single-file crypto library from an application perspective, but everything was not stored into a single, hard-to-navigate file.
In Single C file TLS 1.2/1.3 implementation using tomcrypthttps://download.libsodium.org/doc/secret-key_cryptography/e... also provides some guidance on how to do it when the libraries doesn't provide anything off the shelf.
Libhydrogen takes a different approach, and supports an optional "message id" (which is AD in disguise) https://github.com/jedisct1/libhydrogen/wiki/Secret-key-encr...
In Cryptographic Right AnswersIt's almost 2018, use libhydrogen: https://github.com/jedisct1/libhydrogen/wiki/Password-hashin...
In The scrypt parametersHave you had a chance to look at libhydrogen?
https://github.com/jedisct1/libhydrogen
In Distrustful U.S. allies force spy agency to back down in encryption fightLibH: a tiny crypto library made from 25519 and a permutation (libsodium author)
3 points · Open discussionWhich didn't pass the 3rd round of the CAESAR competition.
But the same idea can still be applied to ChaCha. See https://github.com/jedisct1/libhydrogen/wiki and https://github.com/codahale/xsalsa20poly1305 for example.
In AES-GCM-SIV: AES-GCM with some forgivenessNot sure why this link was posted again today.
For something new, you may want to look at its little brother instead: https://github.com/jedisct1/libhydrogen/wiki
Anyway, version 1.0.12 will be released soon.
In The Sodium crypto libraryLibhydrogen – A lightweight, secure, easy-to-use crypto library
5 points · Open discussionIn the same vein: libhydrogen [1].
Both the API and the underlying primitives are still moving targets, but one of the motivations behind this project was to revisit the NaCl/LibSodium/SUPERCOP API to build something more difficult to misuse.
In particular, users never provide nonces. Contexts are mandatory everywhere. A broken PRG is not always catastrophic. Operations requiring keys have a dedicated keygen() function (eventually, keys may have their own type instead of generic byte buffers). There's no crypto_stream_* API, but a randombytes_buf_deterministic() function.
libhydrogen is not meant to replace libsodium, but the libsodium2 API may resemble more to it than the current one.
[1] https://github.com/jedisct1/libhydrogen
In Show HN: Monocypher: a small, easy to use crypto library