hash-wasm

hash-wasm is a JavaScript/TypeScript library that computes a wide range of cryptographic and non-cryptographic hash functions — MD4/MD5, the SHA-1/2/3 families, Keccak, BLAKE2/BLAKE3, RIPEMD-160, xxHash, SM3, Whirlpool, Adler-32, and CRC32/CRC64 — plus password-hashing and key-derivation functions like Argon2, bcrypt, scrypt, and PBKDF2. Each algorithm is implemented as a hand-tuned WebAssembly binary rather than pure JavaScript, giving it significantly higher throughput than most JS-only hash libraries in both browsers and Node.js.

It exposes both simple one-shot functions and streaming/incremental hashing APIs, keeping bundle size per algorithm small since each hash ships as its own WASM module loaded on demand.

What You Get

• One-shot hash functions (md5(), sha256(), blake3(), etc.) returning hex-encoded digests
• Password/KDF functions: Argon2d/i/id, bcrypt, scrypt, and PBKDF2 with configurable cost parameters
• Streaming/incremental hashing via a createXXX() instance for large or chunked input
• HMAC support layered over any of the included hash algorithms
• Per-algorithm WASM modules kept small (a few KB gzipped each) to minimize bundle impact

Common Use Cases

• Client-side file integrity checks (computing a checksum before or after upload)
• Password hashing with Argon2/bcrypt/scrypt in a Node.js authentication service
• High-throughput data fingerprinting (dedup, caching keys) using fast non-cryptographic hashes like xxHash
• Cross-platform code needing identical hash implementations in both the browser and Node.js

Under The Hood

Architecture hash-wasm’s lib/ directory contains one TypeScript wrapper per algorithm (md5.ts, sha256.ts, blake3.ts, argon2.ts, bcrypt.ts, scrypt.ts, etc.), each of which loads and drives a dedicated, hand-written WebAssembly binary (compiled from C, per the repo’s C/TypeScript language split) through a shared lockedCreate/mutex loading mechanism (lib/lockedCreate.ts, lib/mutex.ts) that manages async WASM instantiation and prevents concurrent-load races. A common index.ts re-exports every algorithm as a flat, tree-shakeable API.

Tech Stack Roughly 60% TypeScript / 40% hand-written C compiled to WebAssembly, published with UMD and ESM builds (dist/index.umd.js, dist/index.esm.js) and full .d.ts type declarations. Build tooling uses a custom scripts/build.sh to compile the C sources to WASM and bundle the TypeScript wrappers; linting runs via Biome.

Code Quality Tests run under Jest with --expose-gc --logHeapUsage and coverage tracked via Codecov, indicating attention to memory behavior given the WASM-heap interaction. However, the repository shows very low recent commit activity (health-score development_activity of 0) and only 3 contributors, with the last tagged release in late 2024 — a maintenance risk despite the code’s technical soundness.

API Design The API is deliberately minimal and consistent across all ~25 supported algorithms — call the matching async function or createXxx() instance — which makes it easy to swap algorithms without relearning the interface, and the per-algorithm module design keeps bundle size proportional only to the hashes actually used.