How NOQTIS compares

No tool is right for everything. This page says what NOQTIS does that the usual tools do not, what they do that NOQTIS does not, and what NOQTIS has not yet earned.

At a glance

	NOQTIS	sha256sum + GPG	minisign / signify	Sigstore (cosign)	BagIt	in-toto
Post-quantum signatures	yes (ML-DSA, SLH-DSA, hybrids)	no	no	no	no signature	depends on the signer
Signs a whole folder	yes	a digest list	a file (signify: a digest list)	one artefact	digests only	a statement of artefacts
Notices added files, links	yes	no	no	n/a	added payload files, yes	no
Works offline	yes	yes	yes	checking with a pinned root only	yes	yes
Needs a service	no (a TSA only for timestamps)	key servers, optional	no	Fulcio and Rekor	no	no
Proof of time	RFC 3161 timestamp	no	no	transparency log	no	no
Who signed	a pinned key	a key and its web of trust	a pinned key	an identity (OIDC)	nobody	a pinned key or identity
Public record of signing	no	no	no	yes	no	no
Show some files only	yes (format 2 proofs)	no	no	no	no	no
Key management	yours	yours	yours	none for the signer	none	yours
Encryption	no (KEMs only)	yes	no	no	no	no
Maturity	new; not audited	decades	years	years, wide use	an RFC, wide use	a CNCF project, wide use

Where NOQTIS is a good fit

• Research data, code and results that must stay checkable for decades, past the point where quantum computers could forge today’s RSA, ECDSA and Ed25519 signatures.
• Work that is unpublished, confidential or sensitive: nothing is sent to any service, and a format 2 proof can show a reviewer one table without the rest.
• Air-gapped and offline checking: a binary, a folder and a .pub file.
• Folders as units of evidence, where an added file must make the check fail.

Where something else is better

• You want no keys to manage. Sigstore’s keyless signing ties a signature to an identity, and its log shows every use. NOQTIS needs you to keep a secret key safe.
• You need a public, append-only record that a signature was made (for software supply chains, a log you can monitor for misuse). NOQTIS has none.
• You need to encrypt files. Use age, GPG or your platform’s tools.
• Your readers will not install anything. sha256sum and gpg are everywhere; NOQTIS is one more binary (or a package for Python, JavaScript, R, Rust, Go or Java).
• Container images. cosign and the registries’ signing support are built for them; NOQTIS signs folders and files.
• You need validated cryptography (FIPS 140-3). NOQTIS implements the FIPS 203, 204 and 205 algorithms and passes the NIST test vectors, but it has no CMVP certificate. Use a validated module where policy requires one.

What NOQTIS has not yet earned

• An audit. No independent firm has reviewed the code. An audit through OSTIF has been applied for and is open for funding; until a report is published, treat NOQTIS as you would any new cryptographic code. See security for what is tested and how.
• Years of use. The format and library are new. The capsule format is specified (spec) so that other tools can check capsules without NOQTIS, but none do yet.
• Hardware side-channel evidence. Timing is measured (dudect) and the masked code is checked against a simulated power model (TVLA); that is not a measurement on real hardware.
• A reviewed TLS client. The https:// client for check <url> is built in only when asked for (-DNQTLS=ON); plain http:// is the default, which is safe for checking because the capsule itself is signed, but it does not hide what you fetch.

Using them together

NOQTIS does not ask you to give anything up. A capsule can also carry a signed SHA256SUMS, its in-toto statement (noqtis export --as intoto) can be signed with cosign, and a BagIt copy (noqtis export --as bagit) can go to an archive that only takes bags. See the coming-from pages for each.