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The following is a comparison of notable hex editors.

General

GUIConsoleSoftware licenseLatest stable versionLatest release dateWindowsMacintoshLinux
HxDYesNoProprietary freeware2.5.0.0February 11, 2021Win95, WinNT4 and upNoNo
010 EditorYesNoProprietary15.0July 31, 2024YesYesYes
beyeNoYesGPL-2.0-only or GPL-3.0-only6.1.0December 12, 2009YesYesYes
bviNoYesGPL-3.0-or-later1.4.2[1]March 7, 2023DOS, Win95 and upYesYes
Cheat EngineYesNoProprietary freeware7.2August 14, 2021YesYes, ver. 6.2No
GNU EmacsYesYesGPL-3.0-or-later29.1[2]July 30, 2023YesYesYes
FlexHexYesNoProprietary freeware for personal use2.7October 12, 2018Windows XP and upNoNo
Frhed (Free Hex Editor)YesNoGPL-2.0-or-later1.7.1July 30, 2009Win98 and upNoNo
HexerNoYesBSD-3-Clause1.06April 24, 2020YesYesYes
HiewNoYesProprietary8.81March 24, 2024YesNoNo
ImHexYesNoGPL-2.0-only1.26.2March 23, 2024[3]YesYesYes
VEDITYesYesProprietary6.24.2Jan 1, 2015YesNoNo
UltraEditYesNoProprietary26.10 (Windows)
18.0 (Linux / Mac OS X)
May 7, 2019
January 2, 2018
YesYesYes
WinHexYesNoProprietary21.0December 13, 2023Win95 and upNoNo
VimYesYesVim9.1.0[4]January 2, 2024YesYesYes
Binary NinjaYesYesProprietary3.5.4526[5]September 15, 2023YesYesYes

Features

Maximum file sizePartial file loadingDisk sector editingProcess memory editingData inspectorBit editingInsert/delete bytesCharacter encodings(ao)Search UnicodeFile formatsDisassemblerFile compareFind in filesBookmarksMacroText editor
HxD8 EiB[6]YesWindows 9x/NT and upYesYesYesYesANSI, ASCII, OEM, EBCDIC, MacintoshYesNoIndividual instructions onlyYesNoYesNoNo
010 Editor8 EiBYesYesWinNT onlyYesYesYesANSI, OEM, Unicode, UTF-8, EBCDIC, CustomYes279 [7]YesYesYesYesYesYes
beyePiBYesNoYesYesANSI, EBCDIC, ASCII, MacintoshYes29 [8]AVR, Java, x86, i386, x86-64, ARM/XScale, PowerPC, PPC64YesNo
bviLimited by RAMYesYesYesANSI, ASCIINoNoYes and replaceYes
Emacs2.3 EB[9][10][11][12]YesUn­knownNoNoNoNoYesYes[13]Un­knownNoNoUn­knownUn­knownYes[14]Yes
FlexHexUnlimited[citation needed]YesYesYesYesYesANSI, OEM, UTF-16Yes2 [15][16]NoYesNoYesNo
FrhedLimited by RAMYesNo(read only)YesYesANSI, OEMYesNoNoYesNoYesNo
HiewUnlimited[citation needed]YesWinNT onlyYesYesYesASCII, OEM, Unicode, customYesNox86, x86-64, MMX, SSE 4.2, 3DNow! - all assembler, ARMYesYesYes
VEDITStandard, 2 GiB, Pro 64, unlimited[citation needed]YesDOS version onlyNoYesYesANSI, OEM, EBCDIC, ASCII, customNoNoNoYesYesYesYesYes
UltraEdit>4 GiBYesNoNoNoNoYesANSI, OEM, EBCDIC, ASCII, Mac, Unix, UTF-8YesNoNoYesYesYes
WinHexUnlimited[citation needed]YesYesYesYesYesPartial support of these formats: ANSI, UNICODE, OEM, UTF-8/UTF-16, EBCDIC, ASCIIYes44 [17][18]Only x86 Intel opcodesYesYes and replaceYes[19]No
vimLimited by RAMNoNoNoNoYes[20]YesASCII, ISO-8859, DOS (OEM), UTF-8, UTF-16, partial EBCDIC (compilation required), unicodeYesNoNoYes[21]NoPlug-in[22]YesYes
ImHex16 EiBYesYesYesYesYesYesANSI, OEM, Unicode, UTF-8, EBCDIC, Shift-JIS, CustomYes65 [23]YesYesYesYesYesNo
Binary NinjaLimited by RAMYesNoYesNoYesYesYesNoYesNoYesOfficial pluginOfficial pluginsNo
Maximum file sizePartial file loadingDisk sector editingProcess memory editingData inspectorBit editingInsert/delete bytesCharacter encodings(ao)Search UnicodeFile formatsDisassemblerFile compareFind in filesBookmarksMacroText editor

See also

Notes

ao: ANSI is the Windows character set, OEM is the DOS character set. Both are based on ASCII.

References

  1. ^ https://bvi.sourceforge.net/download.html [bare URL]
  2. ^ "GNU Emacs". GNU.org. Retrieved 2023-08-09.
  3. ^ https://github.com/WerWolv/ImHex/releases [bare URL]
  4. ^ https://www.vim.org/vim-9.1-released.php [bare URL]
  5. ^ Wiens, Jordan (2023-09-15). "Binary Ninja - 3.5: Expanded Universe". Binary Ninja. Retrieved 2024-02-18.
  6. ^ HxD features
  7. ^ "010 Editor - Binary Template Repository". SweetScape Software Inc. Retrieved 2022-10-05.
  8. ^ "beye / Code / [r238] /newtwindow-branch/src/plugins/bin/". SourceForge. Retrieved 2022-10-05.
  9. ^ "GNU Emacs 23.2 NEWS -- history of user-visible changes".
  10. ^ "Buffers". A buffer's size cannot be larger than some maximum, which is defined by the largest buffer position representable by Emacs integers. This is because Emacs tracks buffer positions using that data type. For typical 64-bit machines, this maximum buffer size is 2^{61} - 2 bytes, or about 2 EiB. For typical 32-bit machines, the maximum is usually 2^{29} - 2 bytes, or about 512 MiB. Buffer sizes are also limited by the amount of memory in the system.
  11. ^ "Does Emacs have problems with large files?".
  12. ^ "GNU emacs manual - Narrowing".
  13. ^ "Special Input for Incremental Search". gnu.org.
  14. ^ "Bookmarks". gnu.org.
  15. ^ "User-defined Data Fields". Inv Softworks LLC. Retrieved 2022-10-05.
  16. ^ The file "FlexHEX\Structures\Disk.fsd" of FlexHex 2.71 installation contains example parsers for FAT and NFTS file system headers
  17. ^ "Additional Templates for WinHex & X-Ways Forensics". X-Ways Software Technology AG. Retrieved 2022-10-05. lists ~30 formats.
  18. ^ WinHex 20.6 release package "winhex.zip" contains 14 template files with ".tpl" suffix with parsers for various storage system formats.
  19. ^ WinHex: Scripting
  20. ^ :help eval
  21. ^ vimdiff
  22. ^ vim-bookmarks
  23. ^ "ImHex-Patterns". GitHub. Retrieved 2023-01-29.