# Fuzzer Benchmark Report (from bug-count CSV)

- Time budget: **24.00h**

> **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 | 4h | 8h | 24h |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| recon-fuzzer | 4 | 10 [10,11] | 11 [11,11] | 11 [11,11] | 11 [11,11] |
| echidna | 4 | 8 [7,8] | 9 [9,9] | 9 [9,9] | 10 [10,10] |
| medusa | 4 | 7 [6,7] | 7 [7,8] | 10 [8,10] | 10 [10,10] |

## Overall metrics
| Fuzzer | AUC (norm) | Plateau time | Late discovery share | Final median | Final IQR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| recon-fuzzer | 0.991 | 1.50h | 0.000 | 11 | 0.00 |
| echidna | 0.823 | 22.20h | 0.050 | 10 | 0.50 |
| medusa | 0.800 | 20.80h | 0.050 | 10 | 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 | 0.10h | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| echidna | 0.10h | 0.10h | 0.15h | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| medusa | 0.10h | 0.10h | 0.20h | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |

## 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 | 1208.81 [1166.61,1229.15] | 4 | 4743059.00 [4671917.25,4902403.25] |
| echidna | 4 | 4 | 2045.72 [2033.47,2057.94] | 4 | 18317364438.50 [13413582036.50,22388935928.00] |
| medusa | 4 | 4 | 1288.50 [1231.00,1310.75] | 4 | 171248686.50 [169593802.75,172491703.75] |

## 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 | 72262.00 [72032.00,72311.25] | 4 | 84.50 [82.00,88.50] |
| echidna | 4 | 0 | n/a | 4 | 586451.50 [526220.25,682570.00] | 4 | 1692.00 [1509.75,1986.75] |
| medusa | 4 | 4 | 12.00 [11.00,13.00] | 4 | 5220.50 [5218.00,5221.25] | 4 | 217.00 [215.50,217.25] |

## Statistical comparison (Mann-Whitney U test)

Pairwise Mann-Whitney U tests on end-of-budget bug counts (two-sided).
Bonferroni correction applied for 3 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 | 11 | 10 | 14.0 | 0.0668 | 0.2003 | no |
| recon-fuzzer | medusa | 11 | 10 | 16.0 | 0.0177 | 0.0531 | no |
| echidna | medusa | 10 | 10 | 9.5 | 0.7389 | 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.
