Roughly how much stronger is a 10-character complex password than a 6-character one — and what does that teach about length?

The jump is astronomical: a 6-char password falls in minutes, a 10-char one would take centuries.

The source's worked example:

• 6 characters, ~36-symbol alphabet → 36⁶ ≈ 2.2 billion combinations → crackable in minutes
• 10 characters, ~94-symbol alphabet → 94¹⁰ ≈ 5.4 × 10¹⁹ combinations → hundreds of years

That's a factor of roughly 20 billion more combinations, from "minutes" to "centuries."

The lesson: every extra character multiplies the search space by the alphabet size, so length is the most powerful lever — more so than just sprinkling in symbols. Going from 6 to 10 characters does far more than making a 6-character password "more complex."

Tip: Try it yourself on a visualiser like security.org's password checker — watch the estimated crack time jump as you add characters.