# Fuzzer Benchmark Report (from bug-count CSV)

- Time budget: **2.00h**

> **Warning — trial run.** This benchmark was executed with fewer than 10 instances per fuzzer and/or a time budget shorter than 24h. Results from trial runs are meant for debugging purposes and are not valid for extracting conclusions across different fuzzers.

## Executive summary
This report is derived solely from cumulative bugs-found over time across repeated runs per fuzzer. It emphasizes robust, distribution-based metrics (median/IQR, success rates, time-to-k) and shape-based behavior (plateau time, late discovery share) instead of single-run time-to-first-bug.

## Bugs found at fixed time budgets (median [IQR])
| Fuzzer | Runs | 1h |
|---|---|---|
| medusa | 4 | 7 [6,7] |
| recon-fuzzer | 4 | 5 [4,6] |
| echidna | 4 | 4 [4,4] |
| foundry | 4 | 0 [0,0] |

## Overall metrics
| Fuzzer | AUC (norm) | Plateau time | Late discovery share | Final median | Final IQR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| medusa | 0.839 | 0.90h | 0.000 | 7 | 0.00 |
| recon-fuzzer | 0.714 | 1.20h | 0.167 | 6 | 0.50 |
| echidna | 0.543 | 0.10h | 0.000 | 4 | 0.00 |
| foundry | 0.000 | 0.00h | 0.000 | 0 | 0.50 |

## Milestones: time-to-k and success rates
| Fuzzer | time-to-1 (p50) | time-to-3 (p50) | time-to-5 (p50) | reach-1 rate | reach-3 rate | reach-5 rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| medusa | 0.10h | 0.10h | 0.15h | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| recon-fuzzer | 0.00h | 0.10h | 0.50h | 100.0% | 100.0% | 75.0% |
| echidna | 0.10h | 0.10h | inf | 100.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| foundry | 0.00h | inf | inf | 25.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |

## Throughput metrics (if supported by log format)
Values are run-level rates aggregated per fuzzer; `n/a` indicates the parser could not recover that metric from logs.
| Fuzzer | Runs | Tx/s runs | Tx/s p50 [p25,p75] | Gas/s runs | Gas/s p50 [p25,p75] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| medusa | 4 | 4 | 1366.00 [1356.75,1388.75] | 4 | 306446473.00 [296238416.75,311723340.00] |
| recon-fuzzer | 4 | 4 | 6530.50 [6500.91,6583.40] | 4 | 25124265.00 [23182689.00,28452955.50] |
| echidna | 4 | 4 | 2794.02 [2771.54,2823.69] | 4 | 22498147891.50 [16761384189.00,23174257543.75] |

## Progress metrics from logs (fuzzer-specific proxies)
Coverage/corpus values are parsed from each fuzzer's native progress output and are useful for trend context, not strict cross-fuzzer equivalence.
| Fuzzer | Runs | Seq/s runs | Seq/s p50 [p25,p75] | Coverage runs | Coverage p50 [p25,p75] | Corpus runs | Corpus p50 [p25,p75] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| medusa | 4 | 4 | 13.00 [13.00,13.25] | 4 | 12196.00 [12182.50,12198.75] | 4 | 554.00 [553.00,555.50] |
| recon-fuzzer | 4 | 0 | n/a | 4 | 143806.50 [143730.50,143875.50] | 4 | 579.00 [571.50,583.75] |
| echidna | 4 | 0 | n/a | 4 | 136748.50 [136630.25,136804.00] | 4 | 510.50 [509.50,511.00] |

## Statistical comparison (Mann-Whitney U test)

Pairwise Mann-Whitney U tests on end-of-budget bug counts (two-sided).
Bonferroni correction applied for 6 comparison(s). Significance level: alpha = 0.05.

**Warnings:**
- One or more fuzzers have fewer than 5 runs. Statistical power may be limited.

| Fuzzer A | Fuzzer B | Median A | Median B | U statistic | p-value | p (corrected) | Significant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| medusa | recon-fuzzer | 7 | 6 | 16.0 | 0.0177 | 0.1062 | no |
| medusa | echidna | 7 | 4 | 16.0 | 0.0131 | 0.0787 | no |
| medusa | foundry | 7 | 0 | 16.0 | 0.0177 | 0.1062 | no |
| recon-fuzzer | echidna | 6 | 4 | 14.0 | 0.0603 | 0.3618 | no |
| recon-fuzzer | foundry | 6 | 0 | 16.0 | 0.0228 | 0.1370 | no |
| echidna | foundry | 4 | 0 | 16.0 | 0.0177 | 0.1062 | no |

No pairwise comparison reached significance after Bonferroni correction.

> **Note:** The Mann-Whitney U test assesses whether one fuzzer tends to find
> more bugs than another across runs. It does not measure effect size or
> practical importance. Small sample sizes (fewer than 5 runs) reduce
> statistical power.

## Shape-based interpretation (rules of thumb)
- **Fast-start / early-plateau**: high early checkpoint median + early plateau time + low late discovery share.
- **Steady**: moderate AUC, later plateau, consistent improvements across checkpoints, moderate variance.
- **Slow-burn / late-surge**: low early checkpoints but high late discovery share and later plateau time; often higher final median.

## Limitations
- Core metrics in this section are count-based; use `broken_invariants.md` / `broken_invariants.csv` for invariant identities.
- Severity, exploitability, and root-cause uniqueness cannot be measured directly without richer per-bug metadata.
- Harness design still affects results; mitigate by keeping harness identical across fuzzers and reporting many runs.
