This is the final part of the series of articles comparing Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery with Hashcat. We’ve already compared the features, the price and performance of the two tools. In this study, we tried breaking passwords to several common formats, including Word document, an encrypted ZIP archive, and a VeraCrypt container. We summarized our experiences below.

Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery and Hashcat support a number of different attacks ranging from brute-force all the way to scriptable, dictionary-based attacks. The costs and performance are extremely important factors. We charge several hundred dollars for what, in the end, can be done with a free tool. Which tool has better performance, and are the extra features worth the price premium? Let’s check it out.

The user interface is a major advantage of Elcomsoft tools. Setting up attacks in Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery is simpler and more straightforward compared to the command-line tool. In this article, we’ll talk about the general workflow, the use and configuration of distributed and cloud attacks in both products.

After publishing the first article in the series, we received numerous comments challenging our claims. We carefully reviewed every comment, reread and reevaluated our original article.  Elcomsoft vs. Hashcat Rev.1.1 is here.

Hashcat is a great, free tool competing head to head with the tools we make. We charge several hundred dollars for what, in the end, can be done with a free tool. What are the reasons for our customers to choose ElcomSoft products instead of Hashcat, and is the expense justified? We did our best to compare the two tools to help you make the informed decision.