Comparative evaluation of artifact extraction performance and usability in digital forensic tools: A study of Cellebrite UFED, MSAB XRY, and Magnet AXIOM

The analysis of electronic evidence from smartphones is essential in modern criminal investigations. This study evaluates the performance of three widely used mobile forensic tools, Cellebrite UFED, MSAB XRY, and Magnet AXIOM, using logical extraction on two iOS and two Android devices, and assesses examiner-perceived usability through the System Usability Scale. On the iPhone 11 Pro, UFED (8539 artifacts) extracted more artifacts than XRY (6542 artifacts) and AXIOM (4220 artifacts). On the iPhone 13 Mini, total artifact counts were UFED (135,024 artifacts), XRY (173,140 artifacts), and AXIOM (355,671 artifacts), with the higher AXIOM volume largely influenced by cache-based and WebKit-related data, including web history (32,614 entries) and SMS artifacts (9101 entries). On the Xiaomi Redmi A3, extraction results were comparable across UFED (285 artifacts), XRY (280 artifacts), and AXIOM (329 artifacts). Greater variation was observed on the Samsung Galaxy A32, with UFED (28,214 artifacts), XRY (15,007 artifacts), and AXIOM (79,088 artifacts), primarily due to differences in artifact classification and provenance rather than disparities in access to core communication data. Usability evaluation showed mean System Usability Scale scores of AXIOM (71.0), UFED (69.2), and XRY (59.7). These findings indicate that artifact volume alone does not necessarily reflect evidentiary value and that forensic tool selection should balance decoding capability, artifact provenance, and usability to ensure reliable and defensible digital evidence analysis.