# AES (256/512) vs age vs chachapoly

**URL:** https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/aes-256-512-vs-age-vs-chachapoly/29917
**Category:** Questions
**Created:** 2025-08-09T22:22:59Z
**Posts:** 2

## Post 1 by @anon33839815 — 2025-08-09T22:22:59Z

Hey, i’m not good at tanich tech stuff. But i need to decide. Which of these encryptions is the best? Which to use on file level and which on hidden volumes? It is worthy to use symetrii+asymetric or just pick one good for both levels?

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## Post 2 by @hashcatHitman — 2025-08-09T22:33:53Z

Symmetric ciphers such as AES are usually the “goal” - they tend to be stronger in the sense that they achieve similar security to asymmetric ciphers with much smaller key sizes. If you need a symmetric cipher to be stronger, it usually isn’t a big deal to just make the key bigger. Asymmetric ciphers need larger keys to achieve a similar level of security, however, so “just make the key bigger” won’t always work. When communicating with someone else, it’s pretty common to use an [asymmetric key agreement scheme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key-agreement_protocol) to decide on a shared secret you can then use with a symmetric cipher.

For your purposes, you probably just want a symmetric cipher. More accurately, you don’t want to be worrying about such primitive details at all. If you don’t really know what you’re doing, I suggest you use [existing recommendations](https://www.privacyguides.org/en/encryption/).