Crypto Benchmark on ESP32-S3 MCU
Tensilica Xtensa LX7 @ 240 MHz

This benchmark conducted on ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1 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-S3 microcontroller.

ESP32-S3 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-S3 @ 240 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)
3DES0.522 MB/s0.52 MB/s----
AES-1281.862 MB/s1.785 MB/s0.955 MB/s0.956 MB/s1.158 MB/s1.131 MB/s
AES-1921.592 MB/s1.529 MB/s0.81 MB/s0.811 MB/s1.047 MB/s1.023 MB/s
AES-2561.39 MB/s1.336 MB/s0.703 MB/s0.704 MB/s0.955 MB/s0.935 MB/s
AlgorithmCBC Encrypt (Hardware)CBC Decrypt (Hardware)CCM Encrypt (Hardware)CCM Decrypt (Hardware)GCM Encrypt (Hardware)GCM Decrypt (Hardware)
AES-1288.13 MB/s7.936 MB/s0.632 MB/s0.632 MB/s0.887 MB/s0.871 MB/s
AES-2568.064 MB/s7.575 MB/s0.619 MB/s0.619 MB/s0.874 MB/s0.858 MB/s

Hash Algorithms

ESP32-S3 @ 240 MHz

  • • Benchmark generated with CycloneCRYPTO 2.1.4
  • • Compiled using GCC with optimization level 2
AlgorithmSpeed (Software)Speed (Hardware)
MD517.241 MB/s-
SHA-13.058 MB/s25 MB/s
SHA-2242.145 MB/s25.641 MB/s
SHA-2562.15 MB/s25.641 MB/s
SHA-3841.312 MB/s27.777 MB/s
SHA-5121.314 MB/s27.777 MB/s
SHA3-2240.989 MB/s-
SHA3-2560.935 MB/s-
SHA3-3840.716 MB/s-
SHA3-5120.497 MB/s-

Signature Algorithms

ESP32-S3 @ 240 MHz

  • • Benchmark generated with CycloneCRYPTO 2.1.4
  • • Compiled using GCC with optimization level 2
AlgorithmSignature Generation (Software)Signature Verification (Software)
RSA (1024 bits)96 ms14 ms
RSA (2048 bits)590 ms52 ms
RSA (3072 bits)1809 ms113 ms
RSA (4096 bits)4090 ms199 ms
DSA (1024 bits)61 ms121 ms
DSA (2048 bits)303 ms626 ms
AlgorithmSignature Generation (Hardware)Signature Verification (Hardware)
RSA (1024 bits)32 ms10 ms
RSA (2048 bits)141 ms37 ms
RSA (3072 bits)368 ms80 ms
RSA (4096 bits)753 ms142 ms
DSA (1024 bits)25 ms50 ms
DSA (2048 bits)91 ms202 ms

EC Signature Algorithms

ESP32-S3 @ 240 MHz

  • • Benchmark generated with CycloneCRYPTO 2.1.4
  • • Compiled using GCC with optimization level 2
AlgorithmSignature Generation (Software)Signature Verification (Software)
ECDSA (P-256)191 ms233 ms
ECDSA (P-384)355 ms426 ms
ECDSA (P-521)418 ms491 ms
EdDSA (Ed25519)58 ms115 ms
EdDSA (Ed448)270 ms540 ms
AlgorithmSignature Generation (Hardware)Signature Verification (Hardware)
EdDSA (Ed25519)57 ms112 ms
EdDSA (Ed448)166 ms331 ms

Key Exchange Algorithms

ESP32-S3 @ 240 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)255 ms255 ms
Diffie-Hellman (2048 bits)1896 ms1896 ms
AlgorithmPublic Key Generation (Hardware)Shared Secret Computation (Hardware)
Diffie-Hellman (1024 bits)39 ms38 ms
Diffie-Hellman (2048 bits)255 ms255 ms

EC Key Exchange Algorithms

ESP32-S3 @ 240 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)188 ms186 ms
ECDH (P-384)331 ms332 ms
ECDH (P-521)406 ms406 ms
ECDH (X25519)32 ms32 ms
ECDH (X448)138 ms138 ms
AlgorithmPublic Key Generation (Hardware)Shared Secret Computation (Hardware)
ECDH (X25519)32 ms32 ms
ECDH (X448)86 ms86 ms