# 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 |
|---|---|---|
| recon-fuzzer | 4 | 4 [4,4] |
| echidna | 4 | 3 [3,3] |
| foundry | 4 | 2 [2,2] |
| medusa | 4 | 2 [2,2] |

## Overall metrics
| Fuzzer | AUC (norm) | Plateau time | Late discovery share | Final median | Final IQR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| recon-fuzzer | 0.962 | 0.10h | 0.000 | 4 | 0.00 |
| echidna | 0.713 | 0.10h | 0.000 | 3 | 0.00 |
| foundry | 0.500 | 0.00h | 0.000 | 2 | 0.00 |
| medusa | 0.475 | 0.10h | 0.000 | 2 | 0.25 |

## 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| recon-fuzzer | 0.00h | 0.10h | inf | 100.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| echidna | 0.10h | 0.10h | inf | 100.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| foundry | 0.00h | inf | inf | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| medusa | 0.10h | 0.20h | inf | 100.0% | 25.0% | 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] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| recon-fuzzer | 4 | 4 | 631.01 [614.81,665.84] | 4 | 130573160.50 [119853318.75,140341417.50] |
| echidna | 4 | 4 | 794.12 [782.99,803.62] | 4 | 9418624050.50 [7280870591.00,11082433992.75] |
| medusa | 4 | 4 | 4490.50 [4280.75,4693.25] | 4 | 1381322497.00 [1355937305.25,1414724960.75] |

## 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] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| recon-fuzzer | 4 | 0 | n/a | 4 | 45192.00 [45161.75,45220.00] | 4 | 59.00 [55.50,68.00] |
| echidna | 4 | 0 | n/a | 4 | 44457.00 [44441.50,44457.00] | 4 | 46.00 [45.50,46.25] |
| medusa | 4 | 4 | 43.50 [41.75,45.75] | 4 | 5155.00 [5155.00,5155.50] | 4 | 93.50 [92.75,94.00] |

## 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| recon-fuzzer | echidna | 4 | 3 | 16.0 | 0.0131 | 0.0787 | no |
| recon-fuzzer | foundry | 4 | 2 | 16.0 | 0.0131 | 0.0787 | no |
| recon-fuzzer | medusa | 4 | 2 | 16.0 | 0.0177 | 0.1062 | no |
| echidna | foundry | 3 | 2 | 16.0 | 0.0131 | 0.0787 | no |
| echidna | medusa | 3 | 2 | 14.0 | 0.0603 | 0.3618 | no |
| foundry | medusa | 2 | 2 | 6.0 | 0.4533 | 1.0000 | 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.
