A curated and enriched list of awesome hexadecimal editors for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
All programs listed bellow have the basic capabilities expected from an hex editor such as viewing, editing, and searching. The number of highlight tags in this list is not a rank. I just want to help you choosing an hex editor that fits your needs.
| Name | Highlight tags | Platform | Interface | License | Origin | Since | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [N] Curses Hexedit | calculator |
🐧 | TUI | GPL-2.0 | 🇺🇸 | Aug 1998 | 🧊 |
| 010 Editor | bookmarks calculator data-inspector diffing disassembly multi-file plugins projects scripting structs |
🪟🐧🍎 | GUI | Commercial | 🇨🇦 | Sep 2003 | 🚀 |
| bvi | multi-file vim-like |
🐧🍎 | TUI | GPL | 🇦🇹 | Jan 2001 | 🚀 |
| dhex | bookmarks calculator diffing |
🐧🍎 | TUI | GPL-2.0 | 🇩🇪 | Mar 2004 | 🧊 |
| dz6 | bookmarks calculator comments themes vim-like |
🪟🐧🍎 | TUI | GPL-3.0 | 🇧🇷 | Nov 2025 | 🚀 |
| EUVA | scripting plugins data-inspector executable-aware themes |
🪟 | GUI | GPL-3.0 | 🇰🇿 | Feb 2026 | 🚀 |
| fhex | data-inspector diffing disassembly structs |
🪟🐧🍎 | GUI | GPL-3.0 | 🇮🇹 | Oct 2019 | 🚀 |
| FileInsight | bookmarks calculator data-inspector executable-aware multi-file plugins scripting structs |
🪟 | GUI | Freeware | 🇺🇸 | ~2006 | 🧊 |
| GHex | bookmarks data-inspector multi-file |
🐧 | GUI | GPL-2.0 | 🇸🇮 | Jun 1998 | 🚀 |
| GNU poke | calculator data-inspector multi-file repl scripting |
🐧🍎 | CLI/TUI | GPL-3.0 | 🇪🇸 | Feb 2021 | 🚀 |
| Helium Hex Editor | bookmarks diffing disassembly executable-aware multi-file plugins structs |
🪟 | GUI | Commercial | 🇫🇷 | 2015 | 🚀 |
| Hex Workshop | bookmarks calculator data-inspector diffing multi-file plugins scripting structs |
🪟 | GUI | Commercial | 🇺🇸 | May 1995 | 🧊 |
| hexedit | 🐧 | TUI | Apache-2.0 | 🇮🇳 | Aug 2020 | 🚀 | |
| Hexer | calculator multi-file vim-like |
🐧🍎 | TUI | BSD-2-Clause | 🇩🇪 | Apr 2009 | 🚀 |
| HexFiend | bookmarks data-inspector data-inspector multi-file structs |
🍎 | GUI | BSD-2-Clause | 🇺🇸 | ~Jul 2014 | 🚀 |
| Hexinator | data-inspector diffing scripting structs |
🪟🐧 | GUI | Commercial | 🇺🇸 | ~2009 | 🚀 |
| HexPatch | comments disassembly scripting |
🪟🐧🍎 | TUI | MIT | 🇮🇹 | Apr 2024 | 🚀 |
| Hexplorer | bookmarks data-inspector disassembly macros structs |
🪟 | GUI | GPL-2.0 | 🇵🇱 | 2002 | 🧊 |
| hextazy | data-inspector vim-like |
🪟🐧🍎 | TUI | MIT | ? | Jul 2024 | 🚀 |
| HexWalk | data-inspector diffing structs |
🪟🐧🍎 | GUI | GPL-3.0 | 🇮🇹 | May 2023 | 🚀 |
| hexxed | data-inspector |
🌐 | Web | Freeware | 🇩🇪 | Jul 2014 | 🚀 |
| Hiew | bookmarks calculator comments diffing disassembly executable-aware macros multi-file plugins themes |
🪟 | TUI | Commercial | 🇷🇺 | ~1991 | 🚀 |
| HT Editor | calculator disassembly executable-aware projects |
🪟🐧🍎 | TUI | GPLv2 | 🇩🇪 | Jan 2000 | 🧊 |
| HxD | bookmarks diffing disassembly multi-file |
🪟 | GUI | Freeware | 🇩🇪 | ~2002 | 🧊 |
| Hyx | vim-like |
🐧🍎 | TUI | MIT | 🇩🇪 | Jan 2017 | 🧊 |
| ImHex | bookmarks calculator comments data-inspector diffing disassembly multi-file plugins structs themes |
🪟🐧🍎 | GUI | GPL-2.0 | 🇨🇭 | Nov 2020 | 🚀 |
| Okteta | bookmarks data-inspector multi-file plugins scripting structs themes |
🐧 | GUI | GPL-3.0 | 🇩🇪 | 2003 | 🚀 |
| rehex | comments data-inspector disassembly multi-file structs themes |
🪟🐧🍎 | GUI | GPL-3.0 | 🇬🇧 | Mar 2020 | 🚀 |
| Synalyze It! | not analyzed yet | 🍎 | GUI | Commercial | 🇺🇸 | Ago 2010 | 🚀 |
| Teehee | data-inspector vim-like |
🪟🐧🍎 | TUI | Apache-2.0 | 🇫🇮 | Apr 2021 | 🧊 |
| WinHex | not analyzed yet | 🪟 | GUI | Commercial | 🇩🇪 | ~Feb 2000 | 🚀 |
| wxHexEditor | data-inspector diffing disassembly |
🪟🐧🍎 | GUI | GPL-2.0 | 🇹🇷 | Jun 2008 | 🧊 |
| XVI32 | bookmarks data-inspector plugins scripting |
🪟 | GUI | Freeware | 🇩🇪 | ~1996 | 🧊 |
Platform icons mean 🪟 - Windows, 🐧 - Linux (commonly include other Unix-like operating systems such as FreeBSD, Unix itself, etc), 🍎 - macOS. However, some authors provide source code only, so it's unclear how many platforms are supported.
Text User Interface (TUI) programs run on the terminal (think of Windows Command Prompt or Linux terminal), but they work interactively. They're usually fast and good to edit things over SSH for example. In contrast, Graphical User Interface (GUI) programs are heavier, but usually bring more features, mouse support, etc.
Licenses such as GPL, Apache, BSD, and MIT are open source licenses, meaning the programs are free to use, modify and share.
The Since column contains the date of the first public release of the software. A tilde means I couldn't find a strong evidence of the actual date, so I guessed it based on information gathered on the internet.
Project status 🚀 means the project is active, while 🧊 means I haven't seen a new release in a while, so it might be discontinued. However, a discontinued app does not necessarily means it's bad. The developers might just consider it mature enough. Best thing to do is try it out and see for yourself.
These Command Line Interface (CLI) tools can't edit files, but they are good to quickly view their contents from the terminal. Many people have written hex viewers out there, so this is far from being a complete list, but I tried to cover the most common ones:
| Name | Description | Platform | Usage example | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| heksa | 🪟🐧🍎 | heksa -l 32 <file> |
🚀 | |
| hexdump/hd | 🐧🍎 | hd -n32 <file> |
🚀 | |
| hexyl | 🪟🐧🍎 | hexyl -n32 <file> |
🚀 | |
| od | Likely present in any Linux/Unix system | 🐧🍎 | od -Ax -tx1 -N32 <file> |
🚀 |
| VBinDiff | Diff tool, but can view single file as well | 🪟🐧 | vbindiff <file1> [file2] |
🧊 |
| xxd | Comes with Vim | 🪟🐧🍎 | xxd -g1 -l16 <file> |
🚀 |
This is a set of tags I came up with to quickly highlight interesting features from the hex editors. It does not cover all of their features though.
| Tag | Description |
|---|---|
bookmarks |
Users can add (named) bookmarks to file offsets |
calculator |
Embedded calculator that usually interacts with the file content |
comments |
User can add comments to file offsets |
data-inspector |
Interpret data using different perspectives, i.e. as unsigned int or time_t |
diffing |
Can compare two or more files |
disassembly |
File content can be seen in Assembly |
executable-aware |
Can natively parse/edit headers from executable files |
macros |
Support macros recording/replay |
multi-file |
Edit multiple files simultaneously |
plugins |
Users can write custom plugins to extend its functionality |
projects |
Can save projects containing multiple files |
repl |
REPL interface such as GDB |
scripting |
Scripting support |
structs |
Binary patterns/structures/templates/grammars |
themes |
Users can change editor colors |
vim-like |
Vim-like keybindings/features |
- Many file editors support hex editing, i.e. Vim (it uses
xxd), VScode (with extensions), etc. Reverse engineering tools such as IDA Pro, Binary Ninja, radare2, and others are also shipped with hex editors. This list focus on "pure" hex editors though. - I didn't include old hex editors for MS-DOS, but they're nice! There's a list here. I have a biew fork you can compile to feel old if you want.
This list is of course not complete. There are hundreds (thousands?) of hex editors out there. If your awesome editor of choice is missing, feel free to send a PR. Please fill in all columns to keep this file informative.