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Best for: Reverse engineers and malware analysts who want a free decompiler

Best for: Reverse engineering a binary when you need a decompiler and cannot pay for IDA

Free and open source under the MIT licence.

Free and open source under Apache 2.0, released by the NSA.

• Free decompiler under a permissive licence
• Built on LLVM and retargetable across architectures
• Dockerfile provided for reproducible builds

• A genuinely capable decompiler producing C-like output, free and open source
• Very wide processor instruction set and executable format support
• Built for teams, with shared projects and version tracking
• Extensible with Java or Python, and scriptable for automated analysis

• Project is in limited maintenance mode
• Command-line tool with no graphical interface
• Intended for authorized analysis of software you are allowed to examine

• The project warns that some versions have known security vulnerabilities
• Java-based, and the interface shows it
• A steep learning curve even for people who know assembly
• Distributed as a portable archive rather than an installer, and needs a JDK

• Official website
• Full listing and sources

Sources for RetDec

• retdec.com
• github.com/avast/retdec

Catalog checked October 2, 2026

• Official website
• Full listing and sources

Sources for Ghidra

• github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra

Catalog checked September 21, 2026