AltCatalog
Catalog File encryption tools Picocrypt
Discontinued Picocrypt was discontinued in September 2025. The alternatives below are active products you can switch to. All discontinued →

Alternatives to Picocrypt

Tiny auditable encryption tool

It is licensed under GPL-3.0, free from Free and available on Windows, macOS and Linux. 9 of 9 checklist rows are verified against a public source.

Most compared with VeraCryptageCryptomator
Official site Suggest an edit Data history Work on Picocrypt? Claim this page
Who it's for

Anyone who wants to encrypt individual files or folders locally without trusting a cloud service, from casual users protecting personal documents to security-conscious or paranoid users who want auditable, modern cryptography.

What you get

A small, single-executable GUI (plus CLI) app for encrypting and decrypting files with authenticated encryption. It supports password and/or keyfile-based unlocking, a secure password generator, Reed-Solomon error correction for long-term storage, file splitting, compression, recursive folder encryption, and a paranoid mode that cascades a second cipher for extra margin.

How it works

Files are encrypted with XChaCha20 (or XChaCha20 cascaded with Serpent in paranoid mode), with keys derived from your password/keyfiles via Argon2id and integrity verified using BLAKE2b (or HMAC-SHA3 in paranoid mode), so any tampering or wrong password is detected before decryption completes.

Why people leave Picocrypt

Dashed reasons are sourced facts; the rest are opinions. Vendors can dispute.

Sign in to add a reason — new reasons go through moderation before appearing.

Ranked alternatives

Ordered by Alt Score. Click any score to see the breakdown.

Sponsored Paid slot. Never affects the ranked order below. Promote here →
01

TrueCrypt's audited successor.

Apache-2.0 WindowsmacOSLinux
Alt Score

Alt Score · 78

How this alternative ranks. How it works →

Verified coverage 90%72
Visibility 10%100

Verified coverage = sourced yes and partial answers in the category checklist. Visibility = relative app-page views on AltCatalog over 30 days, neutral below 500 category views. Payment, votes, and vendor opinions are never score inputs.

Not a real alternative? Flag it
02
age

Modern, simple file encryption CLI.

BSD-3-Clause WindowsmacOSLinux
Alt Score

Alt Score · 69

How this alternative ranks. How it works →

Verified coverage 90%61
Visibility 10%100

Verified coverage = sourced yes and partial answers in the category checklist. Visibility = relative app-page views on AltCatalog over 30 days, neutral below 500 category views. Payment, votes, and vendor opinions are never score inputs.

Not a real alternative? Flag it
03

Per-file encryption made for cloud sync.

GPL-3.0 WindowsmacOSLinuxiOS +1
Alt Score

Alt Score · 69

How this alternative ranks. How it works →

Verified coverage 90%61
Visibility 10%100

Verified coverage = sourced yes and partial answers in the category checklist. Visibility = relative app-page views on AltCatalog over 30 days, neutral below 500 category views. Payment, votes, and vendor opinions are never score inputs.

Not a real alternative? Flag it
04

Modern alternative to GPG.

GPL-3.0 WindowsmacOSLinux
Alt Score

Alt Score · 69

How this alternative ranks. How it works →

Verified coverage 90%61
Visibility 10%100

Verified coverage = sourced yes and partial answers in the category checklist. Visibility = relative app-page views on AltCatalog over 30 days, neutral below 500 category views. Payment, votes, and vendor opinions are never score inputs.

Not a real alternative? Flag it
05

GnuPG for Windows with Kleopatra.

GPL Windows
Alt Score

Alt Score · 60

How this alternative ranks. How it works →

Verified coverage 90%50
Visibility 10%100

Verified coverage = sourced yes and partial answers in the category checklist. Visibility = relative app-page views on AltCatalog over 30 days, neutral below 500 category views. Payment, votes, and vendor opinions are never score inputs.

Not a real alternative? Flag it
06

AES Crypt is a free, open-source utility (since 2005) for encrypting individual files with the AES-256 cipher, available as both a GUI (right-click integration) and a command-line tool on Windows, mac.

Proprietary WindowsmacOSLinuxAndroid
07

AxCrypt is a file and folder encryption app that lets users right-click to encrypt individual files with AES-128/256, rather than mounting a container or volume.

WindowsmacOSLinuxiOS +1
08

BestCrypt Container Encryption, from Finnish vendor Jetico, creates mountable encrypted containers on Windows, macOS, Linux and Android, similar in concept to VeraCrypt.

Proprietary WindowsmacOSLinuxAndroid
09

DiskCryptor is an open-source Windows encryption tool that can encrypt entire disks, partitions, external drives and file-based containers using AES, Twofish and Serpent.

GPL-3.0 Windows
10

NordLocker, from the makers of NordVPN, creates password-protected encrypted folders (lockers) on the user's device using AES-256 and Argon2, with drag-and-drop file/folder encryption and optional end.

Proprietary WindowsAndroidiOSWeb +1
11

Tomb (the Crypto Undertaker), maintained by the Dyne.org Foundation since 2007, is a lightweight shell-script CLI that wraps Linux's cryptsetup/LUKS to create, open and manage encrypted volume files (.

GPL-3.0 LinuxWindows
Sources & verification 14

Every fact and feature listed for Picocrypt is verified against its own pages. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.

FAQ

Yes. VeraCrypt, age and Cryptomator have a free tier or are fully free. Free-tier limits in the comparison table are verified and dated.

VeraCrypt, age and Cryptomator — every license claim links its source.