IDA VS Ghidra

IDA

The best-of-breed binary code analysis tool, an indispensable item in the toolbox of world-class software analysts, reverse engineers, malware analyst and cybersecurity professionals.

Ghidra

Software Reverse Engineering (SRE) Framework

Landing page //
2018-11-11

A powerful disassembler and a versatile debugger IDA Pro as a disassembler is capable of creating maps of their execution to show the binary instructions that are actually executed by the processor in a symbolic representation (assembly language). Advanced techniques have been implemented into IDA Pro so that it can generate assembly language source code from machine-executable code and make this complex code more human-readable.

The debugging feature augmented IDA with the dynamic analysis. It supports multiple debugging targets and can handle remote applications. Its cross-platform debugging capability enables instant debugging, easy connection to both local and remote processes and support for 64-bit systems and new connection possibilities.

Landing page //
2019-08-25

IDA

Categories	IDE Software Development Decompiler Disassembler Debugger Code Analysis Static Code Analysis
Website	hex-rays.com
Details $	-
Platforms	Windows Linux Mac OSX
Release Date	1991-05-21

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Ghidra

Categories	Developer Tools Software Development SRE IDE
Website	ghidra-sre.org
Details $
Platforms	-
Release Date	-

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IDA videos

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Mark Kermode reviews Ida

Ghidra videos

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NSA Ghidra, A game changer ?

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to IDA and Ghidra)

IDA

Ghidra

IDE

61 61%

IDE

39% 39

Software Development

59 59%

Software Development

41% 41

Decompiler

57 57%

Decompiler

43% 43

Text Editors

100 100%

Text Editors

0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using IDA and Ghidra. For example, how are they different and which one is better?

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare IDA and Ghidra

IDA Reviews

Reverse engineering tools review

IDA that is Interactive DisAssembler in an undpisupted king among tools used in reverse engineering. IDA is a disassembler and debugger with built-in code analysis for over 60 types of processors. It has its own script language, large base of signatures of the most popular programming libraries as well as support for plug-ins that additionally enhance functionality e.g. by...

Source: www.pelock.com

The 5 Best Reverse Engineering Software for 2022

The interactive nature of the IDA Pro disassembler means you can change elements of the displayed data in real-time, including functions, variables, names, and library functions. It's written in C++ and runs on Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux. The IDA Pro platform benefits from several plugins, the most notable of which is the Hex-Rays decompiler. With this tool, software...

Source: online.yu.edu

Ghidra Reviews

Reverse engineering tools review

It may not be entirely up to the functionality of HexRays at the moment (remember that Ghidra is a new project), but tools such as decompilers require a lot of work and it is rare to see a new product that someone offers for free.

Source: www.pelock.com

The 5 Best Reverse Engineering Software for 2022

Ghidra's graphical user interface (GUI) is built on Java's Swing framework with a decompiler written in C++ and plugins written in Python. Besides its reverse engineering capabilities, Ghidra features powerful debugging features for both Windows and Linux.6

Source: online.yu.edu

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Ghidra should be more popular than IDA. It has been mentiond 64 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

IDA mentions (10)

how do i make mynown cracks for my steam games?
Learn assembly and then fuck around with https://hex-rays.com/ida-pro/. Gonna take you a week max. Source: 3 months ago
Disabling a pointless hardware check in an old DOS EXE
To RE the executable IDA Pro can be very useful: Https://hex-rays.com/ida-pro/. Source: 12 months ago
Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
It’s a good disassembler that is fairly expensive. https://hex-rays.com/ida-pro/. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
Activision’s Faulty Anti-Cheat Software
It's a disassembler, widely used for creating, for example, cracks/executable patches for games. https://hex-rays.com/ida-pro/. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
A 3D game made with PHP - Counter-Strike: Football 🏉
Mabalik tayo sa games: even if it's a compiled language, even if it's just a single binary file, sometimes, it's still possible to "steal" your code. This is what you call "disassembly". Tools like IDA Pro https://hex-rays.com/ida-pro/ or Ghidra https://ghidra-sre.org/ can do this. Eto yung tools na ginagamit ng mga "game crackers" but they operate in a very small scope - basta mairun lang yung games without the... Source: over 1 year ago

Ghidra mentions (64)

I've figured out what 13 of the 16 enemy flags mean in Ultima V. Help me figure out the last three.
I've got no experience with reverse-engineering executables, but I got a bunch of code-like stuff showing up when I fed ULTIMA.EXE to Ghidra and told it to analyze it with all the flags set. Source: 9 months ago
Modding SH2
The whole game is written in C++ (game logic intertwined with graphics). Ghidra can help you deconstruct the game binaries, but you need to put in a GREAT great effort to even get a starting point. Cheat Engine has been successful for some purposes, including an AI enabling utility for multiplayer (use with great care!). Source: 9 months ago
You have probably heard of Temu right?
What I think you’re talking about is reverse engineering. It’s basically taking a program and analysing the compiled code to attempt to find out how it works. It’s a fairly expansive topic, and fairly tricky to do but look at anything to do with Ghidra to get started. Source: 10 months ago
Asking for clarification ... How is learning C beneficial for becoming a Cyber security expert
Oh also just as an aside Ghidra is a really cool free tool developed by the NSA which can reverse engineer software by looking at its executable and recreating the C code from the instructions and static data within. It's another way to get familiarized with the relationship between C code and the instructions it compiles to. Source: 11 months ago
Super Smash Bros. Melee HD Port Will "Never Happen," According to Former Nintendo Employees
There exist decompilers and other tools for helping make sense of assembly and that can automate some of the conversion back to higher level languages. In my brief involvement with Slippi I used Ghidra - a tool developed by the NSA, to do some of that kind of work, which I found a little amusing. Source: 11 months ago