On 18/09/2026 23:20, Andrey Andreev wrote:
Hi all,
I'd like to gather opinions on the possibility of switching
PASSWORD_DEFAULT from bcrypt to Argon2id.
A few reasons to do so:
- bcrypt has a limit of (and silently truncates at) 72 bytes, which may
seem like an acceptable thing at first glance, but does cause many headaches
- Argon2 is superior in every way and widely recognized as the gold
standard today; I've even encountered people who mistakenly believed it
is already PHP's default
- While both algorithms are (by today's understanding) considered safe
from quantum threat, Argon2's memory hardness makes it future-proof by
design
But there is one contentious circumstance - bcrypt is entirely bundled
with PHP, while Argon2 has external dependencies: libargon2, libsodium,
or (since PHP 8.4) openssl. The addition of OpenSSL is key, because it's
the most ubiquitous and a practical must for almost any environment, IMO
making changing PASSWORD_DEFAULT viable. But am I right to think that,
or is any external dependency likely to kill the proposal? That's what I
want to gauge before fleshing out an RFC with the greater detail it
deserves.
Cheers,
Andrey.
Hi Andrey
Did anything change since the last time?
https://externals.io/message/120993#120996
--
Anton
