Boomerang vs IDA Pro

Boomerang is an open-source decompiler that translates supported machine-code binaries into C source code. It supports x86 (IA-32 only), PPC, and ST20 architectures, and accepts ELF, PE, DOS MZ, DOS/4GW LE, and Mach-O files. Users can run it as a command-line tool or a GUI application. The project describes its license as BSD, and the software is free. Build instructions cover Linux, macOS, and Windows, but compiling requires a 64-bit operating system and a C++17 compiler; 32-bit systems are not supported. Documented prerequisites include CMake, Qt5, Capstone, GNU bison, and GNU flex. Precompiled packages are available for release versions, although the project recommends building the development branch from source. Unit and regression tests are provided, but the README says the regression test suite cannot be built on Windows. The maker describes the release as intended for developers and experimenters and warns that large-binary decompilation may disappoint. Decompiled output does not recreate the original source file and may differ from it. The project directs users to its GitHub issue tracker for bug reports.

IDA Pro is a disassembler, decompiler and debugger for analyzing processors, file formats and software. It supports disassembly for more than 60 processor families, and its debugger works with multiple targets, including remote applications. The bundled gooMBA plug-in uses algebraic and program-synthesis techniques, heuristics and an SMT solver to simplify obfuscated binaries. Automation options include the IDA C++ SDK, IDAPython API, IDAT command-line functions and the idalib headless library. Teams can work with GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Gitea or another Git remote, with Git LFS support for large IDB files. Private Lumina is a self-hosted add-on that restricts a knowledge base to authorized users; it exchanges function hashes and metadata rather than entire byte patterns. IDA Pro runs on Linux, macOS and Windows. The IDA Pro Essential plan costs $1,099 a year, with a one-year minimum commitment and no monthly payments. Hex-Rays states that there is no free trial and points users to IDA Free for checking basic capabilities.