Crypto Benchmark on ESP32-C3 MCU
RISC-V @ 160 MHz

This benchmark conducted on ESP32-C3-DevKitC-02 Development Board will help you in qualifying performance of CycloneCRYPTO (Cryptography library), CycloneSSL (TLS 1.3 & DTLS 1.2 library), CycloneSSH (SSH library with SCP & SFTP protocols), CycloneIPSEC (IPsec/IKEv2 library) and CycloneTCP (TCP/IPv4/IPv6 stack with secure protocols like HTTPS, FTPS, MQTTS, Secure WebSocket, Secure CoAP, Secure Modbus/TCP, SNMPv3...) running on Espressif ESP32-C3 microcontroller.

ESP32-C3 MCU also includes crypto hardware acceleration. In the following comparison charts, both hardware and software performance are presented in the relevant sections.

Cipher Algorithms

ESP32-C3 @ 160 MHz

  • • Benchmark generated with CycloneCRYPTO 2.1.4
  • • Compiled using GCC with optimization level 2
AlgorithmCBC Encrypt (Software)CBC Decrypt (Software)CCM Encrypt (Software)CCM Decrypt (Software)GCM Encrypt (Software)GCM Decrypt (Software)
3DES0.373 MB/s0.367 MB/s----
AES-1281.459 MB/s1.351 MB/s0.752 MB/s0.751 MB/s0.868 MB/s0.866 MB/s
AES-1921.264 MB/s1.172 MB/s0.645 MB/s0.645 MB/s0.793 MB/s0.792 MB/s
AES-2561.114 MB/s1.035 MB/s0.565 MB/s0.565 MB/s0.73 MB/s0.729 MB/s
AlgorithmCBC Encrypt (Hardware)CBC Decrypt (Hardware)CCM Encrypt (Hardware)CCM Decrypt (Hardware)GCM Encrypt (Hardware)GCM Decrypt (Hardware)
AES-1286.25 MB/s5.882 MB/s0.811 MB/s0.81 MB/s0.904 MB/s0.904 MB/s
AES-2566.024 MB/s5.714 MB/s0.783 MB/s0.783 MB/s0.888 MB/s0.887 MB/s

Hash Algorithms

ESP32-C3 @ 160 MHz

  • • Benchmark generated with CycloneCRYPTO 2.1.4
  • • Compiled using GCC with optimization level 2
AlgorithmSpeed (Software)Speed (Hardware)
MD510.204 MB/s-
SHA-12.15 MB/s20.833 MB/s
SHA-2241.589 MB/s20.833 MB/s
SHA-2561.589 MB/s21.276 MB/s
SHA-3841.197 MB/s-
SHA-5121.196 MB/s-
SHA3-2240.808 MB/s-
SHA3-2560.762 MB/s-
SHA3-3840.584 MB/s-
SHA3-5120.406 MB/s-

Signature Algorithms

ESP32-C3 @ 160 MHz

  • • Benchmark generated with CycloneCRYPTO 2.1.4
  • • Compiled using GCC with optimization level 2
AlgorithmSignature Generation (Software)Signature Verification (Software)
RSA (1024 bits)135 ms19 ms
RSA (2048 bits)834 ms73 ms
RSA (3072 bits)2567 ms158 ms
DSA (1024 bits)83 ms171 ms
DSA (2048 bits)429 ms888 ms
AlgorithmSignature Generation (Hardware)Signature Verification (Hardware)
RSA (1024 bits)40 ms14 ms
RSA (2048 bits)173 ms51 ms
RSA (3072 bits)436 ms109 ms
DSA (1024 bits)31 ms66 ms

EC Signature Algorithms

ESP32-C3 @ 160 MHz

  • • Benchmark generated with CycloneCRYPTO 2.1.4
  • • Compiled using GCC with optimization level 2
AlgorithmSignature Generation (Software)Signature Verification (Software)
ECDSA (P-256)246 ms304 ms
ECDSA (P-384)476 ms567 ms
ECDSA (P-521)577 ms681 ms
EdDSA (Ed25519)66 ms132 ms
EdDSA (Ed448)321 ms641 ms
AlgorithmSignature Generation (Hardware)Signature Verification (Hardware)
EdDSA (Ed25519)58 ms116 ms
EdDSA (Ed448)172 ms342 ms

Key Exchange Algorithms

ESP32-C3 @ 160 MHz

  • • Benchmark generated with CycloneCRYPTO 2.1.4
  • • Compiled using GCC with optimization level 2
AlgorithmPublic Key Generation (Software)Shared Secret Computation (Software)
Diffie-Hellman (1024 bits)361 ms361 ms
Diffie-Hellman (2048 bits)2696 ms2696 ms
AlgorithmPublic Key Generation (Hardware)Shared Secret Computation (Hardware)
Diffie-Hellman (1024 bits)42 ms42 ms
Diffie-Hellman (2048 bits)269 ms269 ms

EC Key Exchange Algorithms

ESP32-C3 @ 160 MHz

  • • Benchmark generated with CycloneCRYPTO 2.1.4
  • • Compiled using GCC with optimization level 2
AlgorithmPublic Key Generation (Software)Shared Secret Computation (Software)
ECDH (P-256)242 ms243 ms
ECDH (P-384)443 ms447 ms
ECDH (P-521)561 ms562 ms
ECDH (X25519)37 ms37 ms
ECDH (X448)165 ms165 ms
AlgorithmPublic Key Generation (Hardware)Shared Secret Computation (Hardware)
ECDH (X25519)32 ms33 ms
ECDH (X448)91 ms90 ms