Any time you want to perform offline password cracking exercises, Hashcat is going to be able to do that for you. I can't think of any scenario where you have a password hash you need to crack where another tool would be more suited to the task. Hashcat, of course, works best when you have a GPU available, but you can even use it on a VM if you use the --force flag.
One scenario that fits well Hydra's ability is to test the strength of Drupal usernames and passwords. So, as an example, if we have a Drupal site at some HTTP web address, we could use lots of methods in order to collect a list with some valid users. After we create the list and also the list of some possible passwords we can try to initiate a Hydra brute force attack. Hydra for example is not suited for finding the vulnerabilities of a host, for this other solutions can be used.
It is not a straightforward tool to use, it needs certain dependencies to be installed so it can function as intended by its creators. This is one of the most important steps that need to be done while configuring the tool as one needs.
Sometimes the tool gives False Positives passwords.
There are some issues in the functionality of the tool itself (like some bugs, for example affecting the running and hanging process after a number of tries), but most of them have a solution and there is big community support for the tool.
There are many other tools similar to Hydra, one of them being "John the Ripper ". Notable differences are that while John the Ripper works offline, Hydra works online; also Hydra is more popular and with a wider usage as it supports Windows, Linux, and macOSX. An important thing is that both software are free to use, making both very useful tools. We can note that JTR has also a "pro" version that is not free to use and it is more optimized for speed and performance and focused on a specific operating system, while Hydra is free and offers all features at no cost.
Our business objectives are accomplished using the tool as Hydra covers our needs for a free password cracking tool.
The tool is a free one that has a lot of advantages because it is a powerful one to use for the specific task of performing some activities that are related to penetration testing.
The services that our business provides for several clients in the field of penetration testing are at the level our customers are expecting.
