Is age better than GPG?

For plain file encryption, most people find it simpler and harder to misuse. GPG remains necessary for signing and for the wider OpenPGP ecosystem.

Can age encrypt a folder?

Not directly. You tar the folder and encrypt the archive.

Which cipher is stronger, ChaCha20 or AES-256?

Neither, meaningfully. Both are considered secure; the choice comes down to hardware acceleration.

Yes — age for scripted backups, Elba for the folder you open by hand. They do not interfere.

Guides/Elba vs age

Elba vs age: a GUI for the ‘just encrypt this folder’ case

age is the modern, deliberately small answer to 'GPG is too much'. Elba is the graphical, install-free answer to the same complaint. They share a philosophy and differ almost entirely in interface.

At a glance

Elba compared with age
	Elba	age
Interface	Graphical, in a browser	Command line
Install required	No	Yes — a binary on PATH
Folders	Native	Tar first, then encrypt
Recipients	Just you	Passphrase or recipient keys
Scriptable	No	Yes — its main strength
Cipher	AES-256-GCM	ChaCha20-Poly1305
Price	One-time, falling yearly	Free

Same instinct, different audience

Both tools start from the belief that encryption software has accumulated too many options. age strips file encryption down to a small, modern, well-specified format with no configuration knobs. Elba strips it down to one HTML file with a door and a passphrase.

Where they part company is who is holding the keyboard. age assumes a terminal is comfortable. Elba assumes it is not.

Pick age if

You live in a shell. You want encryption inside scripts, backups, or CI. You want a tiny audited-by-inspection format maintained by people with strong cryptographic credentials. You want it free. All good reasons.

Pick Elba if

You want to hand the tool to someone who has never opened a terminal, and have them succeed on the first try. You cannot install a binary on the machine. You want to browse the sealed folder rather than decrypt individual files by name.

ChaCha20 versus AES, honestly

age uses ChaCha20-Poly1305; Elba uses AES-256-GCM. Both are authenticated, both are modern, both are fine. ChaCha20 is faster on hardware without AES acceleration; AES is faster where the CPU has AES-NI, which is essentially every machine Elba runs on. This is not a security difference and anyone selling it as one is filling column inches.

When age is the better choice

Automation, always. If a machine rather than a person is doing the encrypting, Elba is the wrong shape entirely — it needs a human to open a browser and type a passphrase.

Where age fits in a backup routine

age is close to ideal inside a script: pipe a tar stream through it, write the result to an external disk or a remote host, and never touch a passphrase prompt because the recipient key does the work. Elba cannot do any of that and is not trying to.

A reasonable combined setup is age for the automated nightly backup and Elba for the working folder you open by hand during the day. They never see each other's files, and neither needs to know the other exists.

The single-binary versus single-file question

Both projects value being small enough to reason about. age ships a compact Go binary with a short, published specification. Elba ships one HTML file you can read in a text editor without a compiler or a toolchain.

Which counts as more verifiable depends on you. A specification plus reproducible builds is the stronger answer if you have the skills to use it. A file you can literally open and read is the stronger answer if you do not.

Who Elba is for

If you already have age on your PATH and are happy there, you do not need Elba. Elba exists for the much larger group of people for whom 'install a binary and run a command' is where the project quietly dies.

Questions people actually ask

Is age better than GPG?: For plain file encryption, most people find it simpler and harder to misuse. GPG remains necessary for signing and for the wider OpenPGP ecosystem.
Can age encrypt a folder?: Not directly. You tar the folder and encrypt the archive.
Which cipher is stronger, ChaCha20 or AES-256?: Neither, meaningfully. Both are considered secure; the choice comes down to hardware acceleration.
Is age free?: Yes, free and open source.
Can Elba read age files?: No. Different formats.
Can I use both?: Yes — age for scripted backups, Elba for the folder you open by hand. They do not interfere.

Take the island

Elba is one HTML file. It runs locally in a Chromium browser, seals a folder with AES-256-GCM, never phones home, and becomes open source on 1 January 2030.

€49MMXXVI· now ·
€39MMXXVII2027
€29MMXXVIII2028
€19MMXXIX2029
FreeMMXXX2030

the price falls each year · free to all 1 jan 2030

Take the island — €49

pay once · no account · nothing leaves

Compare Elba with other tools

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