Here's a quick comparison of Hydra and Medusa. This is based on my
understanding of Hydra 5.0 and Medusa 1.1. It should be noted that
even if a particular item is checked, it does not necessarily
mean it works correctly.
| Area | Feature | Hydra | Medusa |
| * | License | HYDRA | GPL-2 |
| Bugs | &radic | &radic | |
| Core | Parallel Method | fork() | pthread |
| Service Design | Built-in | Modular | |
| Speed | ? | ? | |
| Generic Wrapper Module | &radic | ||
| CVS | Broken - infinite loop | &radic | |
| FTP | &radic | &radic | |
| HTTP | Basic Auth | Broken - Base64 incorrect for some passwords | &radic |
| NTLM Auth (Windows Integrated) | &radic | ||
| HTTP Proxy | &radic | ||
| ICQ | &radic | ||
| IMAP | Method "login" Support | &radic | |
| Method AUTH-PLAIN Support | &radic | ||
| LDAP | &radic | ||
| Microsoft SQL | &radic | &radic | |
| MySQL | Pre-4.1 Authentication | &radic | &radic |
| 4.1 Authentication | &radic | ||
| NCP (NetWare) | &radic (ncpfs) | ||
| NNTP | &radic | ||
| Oracle | Database | Non-Functional | |
| Listener | Non-Functional | ||
| PcAnywhere | Supported Encryption Level | None | None |
| Supported Authenication Mode(s) | Native PCA | Native PCA, ADS, NT, Windows | |
| PCNFS | &radic | ||
| POP3 | &radic | &radic | |
| PostgreSQL | &radic | &radic | |
| REXEC | &radic | &radic | |
| RLOGIN | .rhost Support | &radic | |
| Password Support | &radic | &radic | |
| RSH | &radic | &radic | |
| SAPR3 | &radic | ||
| SIP | &radic | ||
| SMB (Microsoft Windows/Samba) | NetBIOS Mode | &radic | &radic |
| W2K Native Mode | Broken | &radic | |
| Hash Passing | Broken | &radic | |
| SMTP | AUTH | &radic | |
| VRFY | &radic | ||
| SNMP | &radic (overwrites sysName with "HYDRA") | &radic (significantly faster design) | |
| SOCKS5 | &radic | ||
| SSHv2 | &radic (libssh) | &radic (libssh2) | |
| SVN | &radic | &radic | |
| TeamSpeak | &radic | ||
| Telnet | Generic Telnet | &radic | &radic |
| Cisco (AAA/non-AAA) | &radic | &radic | |
| Cisco enable password | &radic | ||
| VNC | Password-less/Password-only Support | &radic | &radic |
| Anti-Brute Force Slowdown Support | &radic | ||
| Username/Password Support | |||
| VmWare Authentication Daemon | Non-SSL Authentication | &radic | &radic |
| SSL Authentication | &radic |