MD5 and SHA256 are two popular cryptographic algorithms, used to store sensitive data (passwords for example). In this article, we’ll see the difference between them, and which one you should use and why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a whole, SHA-256 is better than MD5 because the output size is twice longer and the probability of collisions is lower. SHA-256 is a bit slower than MD5, but it shouldn’t impact performances enough to not use it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We’ll start by taking a look at each algorithm characteristics, before comparing them point by point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n