libsodium

Provide purpose-specific APIs for encryption, signatures, and key management

The library covers secret-key and public-key encryption, digital signatures, secure random data, password hashing, key exchange, and key derivation. Its quickstart requires sodium_init() before other calls and recommends authenticated high-level APIs such as crypto_secretbox, crypto_aead, and crypto_secretstream.

Sources: [1][2]

Keep algorithms and data formats consistent across supported platforms

libsodium supports Windows, iOS, Android, JavaScript, WebAssembly, and other environments while keeping algorithms and input/output formats consistent. Release 1.0.22 also adds ML-KEM768, the X-Wing hybrid of ML-KEM768 and X25519, plus one-shot and streaming SHA-3 APIs.

Sources: [1][2][5]

Fits applications that want safer interfaces instead of custom cryptographic constructions

It is a candidate for encrypting stored or transmitted data, signing content, storing passwords, and establishing shared keys across several platforms. Language bindings can also provide access to the same constructions and formats when a project is not written in C.

Initialization, return values, keys, and nonces remain application responsibilities

Applications must call sodium_init() first, check error and verification results, and protect unpredictable secret keys. Some constructions require a unique key-and-nonce pair; reusing one can destroy confidentiality, so protocol design and state management still matter.

The documentation warns that the low-level crypto_stream() interface does not authenticate ciphertext and should not be used as a complete encryption scheme. Manual builds require an appropriate C toolchain and Autotools, and teams should verify distribution archives, run tests, and account for platform linker setup. The project uses the ISC license.

Sources: [2][3][4]