Install b3sum with Homebrew, apk, apt, dnf, Nix, pacman, zypper, scoop

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• b3sum

Project history

BLAKE3 was designed by Jack O'Connor, Samuel Neves, Jean-Philippe Aumasson, and Zooko Wilcox, with development sponsored by Electric Coin Company. The official repository presents BLAKE3 as an optimized successor in the BLAKE family: it is based on BLAKE2 and Bao's tree mode, and its design rationale is published in the BLAKE3 paper.

The b3sum binary sits beside the Rust crate and C implementation in the official BLAKE3 repository. Its role is intentionally old-school: it prints BLAKE3 hashes for files or standard input, but it also uses BLAKE3's parallel design to make command-line hashing much faster than classic checksum commands on typical desktop hardware.

Adoption history

The official repository publishes prebuilt b3sum binaries for Linux, Windows, and macOS and documents installation through Cargo. The package-manager metadata in this batch shows b3sum packaged across Homebrew, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, Alpine, Nix, Scoop, and openSUSE, which is broad adoption for a standalone checksum utility.

BLAKE3 has also moved beyond the single CLI: the official README points to a Rust crate, a C implementation, test vectors, reference implementations, and a C2SP specification. That makes b3sum the user-facing entry point for a wider portable cryptographic primitive.

How it is used

b3sum is used like sha256sum or md5sum: pass files or standard input and receive hexadecimal BLAKE3 digests. The official README highlights using it for quick local benchmarks against SHA-256 as well as ordinary file hashing.

Because BLAKE3 is explicitly not a password-hashing algorithm, b3sum belongs in integrity checking, content addressing, deduplication, and build or artifact workflows rather than password storage.

Why package nerds care

For package people, b3sum is interesting because it is a modern checksum command that still fits the tiny Unix filter shape. It packages a high-performance, SIMD-aware, multithreaded hash into a single CLI that can be dropped into scripts where older checksum commands used to live.

Its presence across many package managers also tracks the way new cryptographic primitives become operationally real: first as a spec and library, then as a small command-line executable users can trust in automation.

Timeline

• 2020: BLAKE3 is published with an official implementation, paper, Rust crate, C implementation, and b3sum CLI.
• 2025: BLAKE3 1.8.x releases continue shipping through the official GitHub releases feed.
• 2026: BLAKE3 1.8.5 is published on GitHub, showing continued maintenance of the implementation and CLI.

Related projects

• BLAKE2 is the immediate hash-function ancestor named by the BLAKE3 README.
• Bao provides the tree-mode lineage and verified-streaming ideas referenced by the BLAKE3 project.
• Argon2 is explicitly recommended by the BLAKE3 project for password hashing, which b3sum is not meant to solve.
• Classic checksum tools such as sha256sum and md5sum are the command-line comparison point for b3sum.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/BLAKE3-team/BLAKE3/releases
• https://c2sp.org/BLAKE3
• https://github.com/BLAKE3-team/BLAKE3
• https://github.com/BLAKE3-team/BLAKE3-specs/blob/master/blake3.pdf
• input.json source_facts.package-manager