Like John the Ripper, it runs from the command line, and can crack a massive list of password types. One of John the Ripper’s closest competitors is Hashcat.

It has a modern graphical interface, performs well, and can crack 13 different hash types, including LMHash, NTHash, MD5, and SHA variants.

Alternatives to John the Ripper password crackerįor a Windows program for cracking password hashes, consider Hash Suite. The £73.11 package includes installation support by email for the first month, and the £150.36 package includes email support for a year. You can browse queries and replies sent to the mailing list all the way back to 2005.įor more official support, you can opt for John the Ripper Pro. There are also several mailing lists for John the Ripper, which average around 30 to 40 emails per month. Though it’s aimed at intermediate users who are comfortable using the command line, all the steps that you need to take to get the software running are well laid out. John the Ripper has an excellent wiki, with step-by-step tutorials on how to build the software and use it to crack passwords. The John the Ripper wiki has step-by-step tutorials on using the tool (Image credit: John the Ripper)