SHA-256 vs MD5 vs SHA-1: Cryptographic Hash Security Comparison

Published: 2026-02-02 | Read Time: 4 min read

A security breakdown of hashing algorithms explaining why MD5 and SHA-1 are cryptographically broken due to collision vulnerabilities, and why SHA-256 is the standard.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I use SHA-256 for storing user passwords in databases?

No! SHA-256 is designed for high-speed computing, allowing GPUs to test billions of guesses per second. For passwords, always use slow adaptive hashing like [bcrypt](/security/bcrypt-generator) or Argon2.