This document compares features and performance of the following NTP implementations:

Presence of the features was determined from the documentation, observed behaviour, and source code. There may be mistakes, please let us know if you find any.

Features

Basic

chrony ntp openntpd

Supported systems

Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, illumos, macOS

Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, macOS, Windows, …​

Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, macOS

License

GPLv2

MIT + BSD

BSD

Programming language

C

C

C

Size of stripped daemon binary in default configuration on Linux x86-64

287 KB

889 KB

92 KB

Time sources

chrony ntp openntpd

NTP

Yes

Yes

Yes

Reference clocks

Yes

Yes

Yes

Manual input

Yes

No

No

Source tracking

chrony ntp openntpd

Fixed sample filtering

Yes

Yes

Yes

Adaptive sample filtering

Yes

No

No

Sample weighting

Yes

No

No

Frequency tracking

Yes

No

No

Restore state from file

Yes

No

No

Source selection

chrony ntp openntpd

Nonrandom selection

Yes

Yes

Yes

Falseticker detection

Yes

Yes

No

Clustering

No

Yes

No

Offset combining

Yes

Yes

No

Frequency combining

Yes

N/A

N/A

Minimum number of sources

1 (configurable)

1 (configurable)

1

Clock discipline

chrony ntp openntpd

Independent phase and frequency control

Yes

No

Yes

Allowed random update interval (e.g. intermittent connection)

Yes

No

Yes

Step threshold

Infinity (configurable)

0.128 s (configurable)

N/A

Limited number of steps

Yes (configurable)

No

Yes

Panic threshold

Infinity (configurable)

1000 s (configurable)

N/A

Maximum slew rate

System specific (Linux: 100000 ppm, FreeBSD, NetBSD, macOS: 5000 ppm, illumos: 32500 ppm) (configurable)

500 ppm

System specific (Linux: 500 ppm, FreeBSD, NetBSD: 5000 ppm, illumos: 65000 ppm)

Restore frequency from file

Yes

Yes

Yes

Limited wakeups (power saving)

Yes

No

Yes

Temperature compensation

Yes

No

No

NTP modes

chrony ntp openntpd

Server (mode 4)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Client (mode 3)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Persistent symmetric

Yes

Yes

No

Ephemeral symmetric

No

Yes

No

Broadcast server

Yes

Yes

No

Broadcast client

No

Yes

No

Multicast server

No

Yes

No

Multicast client

No

Yes

No

Manycast server

No

Yes

No

Manycast client

No

Yes

No

Interleaved server

Yes

No

No

Interleaved client

Yes

?

No

Interleaved symmetric

Yes

Yes

No

Interleaved broadcast

No

Yes

No

NTP client

chrony ntp openntpd

Multiple servers per name (pool)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Fixed delay-based sample filtering

Yes

Yes

Yes

Adaptive delay-based sample filtering

Yes

No

No

Estimation of asymmetric jitter

Yes

No

No

KoD RATE handling

Yes

Yes

No

Ready for next NTP era (year 2036)

Yes

Yes

No

Extra timestamp validation

No

No

Yes (HTTPS date)

Configurable port number

Yes

No

No

NTP server

chrony ntp openntpd

Protocol version

NTPv4

NTPv4

SNTPv4

Root dispersion/delay accumulation

Yes

Yes

No

Adaptive dispersion rate

Yes

No

N/A

Access control

Yes

Yes

No

Response rate limiting

Yes

Yes

No

Local reference

Yes

Yes

No

Orphan mode

Yes

Yes

No

Served time not fixed to system time

Yes

No

Yes

Time smoothing

Yes

N/A

No

Configurable port number

Yes

No

No

NTP authentication

chrony ntp openntpd

Symmetric key

Yes

Yes

No

Autokey (insecure)

No

Yes

No

Network Time Security

Yes

No

No

MS-SNTP via Samba

Yes

Yes

No

MAC hash functions

MD5, SHA-1, SHA-2, …​

MD5, SHA-1, SHA-2, …​

N/A

CMAC ciphers

AES-128, AES-256

AES-128

N/A

NTP pool use

chrony ntp openntpd

Number of used servers

4 (configurable)

10 (configurable)

By DNS

Replace unreachable

Yes

Yes

No

Replace falsetickers

Yes

Yes

N/A

NTP poll control

chrony ntp openntpd

Polling interval

64-1024 s (configurable)

64-1024 s (configurable)

5-1500 s

Minimum configurable polling interval

1/64 s

8 s

N/A

Randomization

Yes

Yes

Yes

Burst

Yes

Yes

No

Interval independent from other sources

Yes

Yes

No

Aware of jitter

Yes

Yes

No

User-controlled polling

Yes

No

No

NTP timestamping

chrony ntp openntpd

Kernel RX timestamping

Yes

Yes

Yes

Kernel TX timestamping

Yes (Linux)

No

No

Hardware RX timestamping

Yes (Linux)

No

No

Hardware TX timestamping

Yes (Linux)

No

No

Reference clocks

chrony ntp openntpd

System drivers

PPS, PTP clock (Linux)

PPS

Timedelta sensors (OpenBSD)

Interfaces for 3rd party drivers

SHM, SOCK

SHM

None

Number of HW-specific drivers

0

> 30

0

Sample filtering

Yes

Yes

Yes

Real-time clock (RTC)

chrony ntp openntpd

Time initialization from RTC

Yes (Linux)

No

No

RTC drift tracking

Yes (Linux)

No

No

RTC trimming

Yes (Linux)

No

No

Kernel RTC synchronization

Yes (Linux, macOS)

Yes (Linux)

Yes (Linux)

Restore time from file w/o RTC

Yes

No

No

Leap seconds

chrony ntp openntpd

Clock correction modes

system, step, slew, ignore

system, step, ignore

ignore

Majority of sources required to agree on leap

Yes

Yes

No

Additional leap second source

system tzdata

leapfile

N/A

Server leap smear

Yes (quadratic)

Yes (cosine)

N/A

Accepted on

Jun 30 / Dec 31

any day

any day

Applied on

Jun 30 / Dec 31

last day of any month

N/A

Announced on

Jun 30 / Dec 31

last day of any month

any day

Runtime management

chrony ntp openntpd

Local monitoring

Yes

Yes

Yes

Local configuration

Yes

Yes

No

Remote monitoring

Yes

Yes

No

Remote configuration

No (chrony >= 2.2)

Yes

No

Restricted access

Yes

Yes

N/A

Security

chrony ntp openntpd

Root privileges dropping (in all processes)

Yes (Linux)

Yes (Linux, NetBSD, illumos)

No

Privilege separation

Yes (FreeBSD, NetBSD, macOS, illumos)

No

Yes

System call filter (seccomp, pledge)

Yes (Linux)

Yes (Linux)

Yes (OpenBSD)

Random NTP client source port

Yes

No

Yes

Fully random transmit timestamp in client packets

Yes

No

Yes

Sub-second randomization of polling interval

Yes

No

No

Connected NTP client sockets

Yes

No

Yes

NTP server port disabled by default

Yes

No

Yes

Remote management disabled by default

N/A

No

N/A

Remote management port separate from NTP

Yes

No

N/A

No traffic amplification in management protocol

Yes

No

N/A

Non-blocking response rate limiting

Yes

No

N/A

Performance

This is a comparison of accuracies that can be achieved when the NTP implementations are used as NTP clients in various clock and network conditions. The accuracy of the synchronized clock was measured in a simulated Linux environment. The results are mean values and standard deviations from 100 simulations. The values are in microseconds.

Test 1: permanent network connection and stable clock

In this test with one NTP server the clients were using their default polling configuration. The clock was relatively stable (1ppb/s wander).

Network jitter chrony ntp openntpd

10 μs

35 ± 8

234 ± 46

857 ± 226

100 μs

109 ± 14

256 ± 50

888 ± 221

1.0 ms

475 ± 93

454 ± 94

980 ± 262

10.0 ms

1603 ± 447

3665 ± 651

2014 ± 387

Test 2: permanent network connection and less stable clock

In this test the polling interval of the clients was fixed to 64 seconds and the clock was less stable (10ppb/s wander). openntpd couldn’t be included as its polling interval is not configurable.

Network jitter chrony ntp openntpd

10 μs

14 ± 0

165 ± 17

N/A

100 μs

56 ± 3

167 ± 18

N/A

1.0 ms

229 ± 15

217 ± 17

N/A

10.0 ms

750 ± 91

1467 ± 100

N/A

Test 3: intermittent network connection

In this test the network was available to the clients only for 30 continuous minutes every 24 hours. The polling interval configuration and the clock wander were the same as in the first test.

Network jitter chrony ntp openntpd

10 μs

7273 ± 1744

608803 ± 510468

170583 ± 140321

100 μs

9528 ± 1895

580679 ± 481379

160203 ± 112421

1 ms

10706 ± 2521

1115961 ± 733914

168645 ± 126309

10 ms

26105 ± 70408

897703 ± 847901

285437 ± 295667

Summary

chrony vs ntp

Things chrony can do better than ntp:

  • chrony can perform usefully in an environment where access to the time reference is intermittent. ntp needs regular polling of the reference to work well.

  • chrony can usually synchronise the clock faster and with better time accuracy.

  • chrony quickly adapts to sudden changes in the rate of the clock (e.g. due to changes in the temperature of the crystal oscillator). ntp may need a long time to settle down again.

  • chrony can perform well even when the network is congested for longer periods of time.

  • chrony in the default configuration never steps the time to not upset other running programs. ntp can be configured to never step the time too, but in that case it has to use a different means of adjusting the clock (daemon loop instead of kernel discipline), which may have a negative effect on accuracy of the clock.

  • chrony can adjust the rate of the clock in a larger range, which allows it to operate even on machines with broken or unstable clock (e.g. in some virtual machines).

  • chrony is smaller, it uses less memory and it wakes up the CPU only when necessary, which is better for power saving.

Things chrony can do that ntp can’t:

  • chrony supports the Network Time Security (NTS) authentication mechanism.

  • chrony supports hardware timestamping on Linux, which allows an extremely stable and accurate synchronisation in local network.

  • chrony provides support for isolated networks whether the only method of time correction is manual entry (e.g. by the administrator looking at a clock). chrony can look at the errors corrected at different updates to work out the rate at which the computer gains or loses time, and use this estimate to trim the computer clock subsequently.

  • chrony provides support to work out the gain or loss rate of the real-time clock, i.e. the clock that maintains the time when the computer is turned off. It can use this data when the system boots to set the system time from a corrected version of the real-time clock. These real-time clock facilities are only available on Linux, so far.

Things ntp can do that chrony can’t:

  • ntp supports all operating modes from RFC 5905, including broadcast, multicast, and manycast server/client. However, the broadcast and multicast modes are inherently less accurate and less secure (even with authentication) than the ordinary server/client mode, and should generally be avoided.

  • ntp supports the Autokey protocol (RFC 5906) to authenticate servers with public-key cryptography. Note that the protocol has been shown to be insecure and has been obsoleted by NTS (RFC 8915).

  • ntp has been ported to more operating systems.

  • ntp includes a large number of drivers for various hardware reference clocks. chrony requires other programs (e.g. gpsd or ntp-refclock) to provide reference time via the SHM or SOCK interface.