HxD icon

HxD

HxD is a free and open-source hex editor, disk editor, and memory editor for Windows. It allows users to view, edit, analyze, modify, and export raw binary data and files in hexadecimal or ASCII. Common uses include editing game hacks and mods, low-level hard drive editing, analyzing network packets, and more.

What is HxD?

HxD is a free and open-source hex editor, disk editor, and memory editor software for Windows. It enables users to view, edit, analyze, modify and export the raw binary data of files or disks at the byte level in either hexadecimal or ASCII formats.

Some key features and capabilities of HxD include:

  • Opening physical disks and logical volumes to view raw binary and structured data
  • Editing disks at sector/block level for tasks like data recovery
  • Viewing and editing the raw binaries of EXE, DLL and other files
  • Analyzing and modifying game hacks, mods or assets
  • Inspecting raw data from network traffic captures
  • Powerful search and replace across binary data
  • Calculating checksums like MD5, SHA-1
  • Exporting binary data to various formats

HxD has an intuitive user interface that allows seamless editing in both hex and ASCII panes. It is commonly used by programmers, web developers, IT professionals, game modders and others who need to handle low-level data editing or analysis tasks. Since it runs natively on Windows, it provides an excellent free alternative to paid commercial hex editors.

The Best HxD Alternatives

Top Apps like HxD

PE Explorer, WinHex, Ghex, 010 Editor, Okteta, ImHex, wxMEdit, RJ TextEd, Bless, Binary Ninja, iHex, Hiew, 0xED, HexEd.it, Hexinator, Free Hex Editor Neo, MadEdit, XVI32, Malcat, Hex Fiend, Kaitai Struct, Active@ Disk Editor, Hex Workshop, Batch Hex Editor, MiTeC HexEdit, Preon, wxHexEditor, Heraia, BinHex CryPactor, MadEdit-Mod, Climacs, Hexplorer, Hecate, Hexer, FlexHex, FileInsight, EverEdit are some alternatives to HxD.

PE Explorer

PE Explorer is a feature-rich portable executable (PE) file viewer, editor, analyzer, and debugger for Windows. It enables developers, reverse engineers, and malware analysts to examine the structure and components of EXE, DLL, OCX, SYS, and other PE file formats in great depth.With PE Explorer, you can view and...

WinHex

WinHex is a versatile hex editor, disk editor, and memory editor program for Windows. It enables users to efficiently edit, search, inspect, and analyze disk drives, memory, and other binary data. Some key features of WinHex include:Hexadecimal editor for files, disks, and physical memoryBuilt-in tools for data recovery, computer...

Ghex

Ghex is a graphical hex editor designed for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. As a hex editor, it allows users to view and edit the raw binary contents of files in either hexadecimal or ASCII formats.Some key features of Ghex include:Open, view, edit, and save files with...

010 Editor

010 Editor is a powerful hex editor and text editor software used for analyzing and editing binary files. Some key features of 010 Editor include:Hex editor with nibble and bit level editing supportText editor with syntax highlighting for multiple languagesFile comparisons for finding binary file differencesCalculate checksums and hash values like...

Okteta

Okteta is a free and open source hex editor designed specifically for the Linux operating system. It enables users to view and edit the raw binary contents of files in a hexadecimal format. Some key features of Okteta include:Easy to use interface - The user interface is clean and...

ImHex

ImHex is an advanced hex editor, disk editor, and debugger that enables viewing and editing binary files such as executables. It features a modern and intuitive UI providing powerful tools for data analysis and editing aimed towards IT security experts.Key features include:Fast binary editing using hex, decimal, octal...

WxMEdit

wxMEdit is a free, open source, cross-platform text and source code editor written in C++ using the popular wxWidgets toolkit. It provides a simple, lightweight interface designed primarily for quickly editing text files.Some of the key features of wxMEdit include:Syntax highlighting for over 80 languages including C/C++, Java...

RJ TextEd

RJ TextEd is a free, open-source text editor for Windows. Developed as an alternative to heavyweight word processors and code editors, RJ TextEd aims to provide a fast, minimalist editing experience.It includes essential editing tools such as find/replace, go to line, syntax highlighting for common programming languages, and...

Bless

Bless is an open-source, self-hosted bookmark and archive manager created by Ryan C. Thompson. It allows users to save, organize, tag, annotate, and search bookmarks, web pages, and articles for later reference.Some key features of Bless include:Full-text search across all contentAutomatic tagging of links based on contentWeb annotation...

Binary Ninja

Binary Ninja is a versatile reverse engineering platform used for software analysis, vulnerability research, and reverse code engineering. It provides disassembly, decompilation, graphing, scripting, and other functionality to examine and modify binary programs.Some key features of Binary Ninja include:Supports a wide range of architectures including x86, ARM, MIPS...

IHex

iHex is a feature-rich hex editor designed specifically for macOS. It enables users to view and manipulate the raw binary contents of files in an easy-to-use hexadecimal format. Some key features of iHex include:Intuitive user interface with color-coded bytes for easy reading of hex dataSupport for editing extremely large...

Hiew

Hiew is a versatile hex editor, disk editor and memory editor software for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows operating systems. It enables users to view, edit, analyze, modify, copy, and manipulate files, disks, and memory in hexadecimal or ASCII.Some of the key features of Hiew include:Supports editing files of...

0xED

0xED is an open-source blockchain explorer and analysis platform for Ethereum-based blockchains. It allows users to easily search, view, and analyze blockchain data and transactions on networks like Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, Optimism, and Arbitrum.Some key features of 0xED include:Real-time view and search of blockchain data like...

HexEd.it

HexEd.it is a free online hexadecimal editor that allows you to view and edit the raw hexadecimal or ASCII data in files without needing to install any software. Some key features of HexEd.it include:Open and edit a variety of file types including executables, disk images, documents, and...

Hexinator

Hexinator is a powerful hexadecimal editor and disk editor for Windows. It allows you to view, edit, analyze, validate, and modify hexadecimal data. Some key features of Hexinator include:Supports files of any sizeFlexible viewing options (bytes, bits, UTF-8, UTF-16)Advanced search and replaceChecksum/hash calculationsData inspection and validationFile comparisonBookmarkingScripting...

Free Hex Editor Neo

Free Hex Editor Neo is a powerful, free and open source hex editor software for Windows. It enables users to view and edit the hexadecimal data of files, disks and RAM with easy to use tools and features.Key features include:Supports file sizes up to 248 GBMultiple data inspection tools...

MadEdit

MadEdit is a free, open source text editor for Windows. It is designed to provide advanced editing features, speed, and lightweight system resource usage.Some key features of MadEdit include:Syntax highlighting for over 80 programming languages and markup languagesPowerful search and replace with regular expression supportEditing support for mixing left-to-right...

XVI32

XVI32 is a free open source hex editor for the Windows operating system. It provides a wide range of functionalities for viewing, editing, searching, analyzing, manipulating and exporting binary file data.Some of the key features of XVI32 include:Intuitive and customizable user interface with tabs and panelsFast binary file...

Malcat

Malcat is an open-source malware analysis toolkit designed to help security researchers and incident responders analyze and extract information from malicious files. It provides a modular framework for analyzing different types of files including Portable Executables (PE), MS Office documents, PDF documents, scripts, and memory dumps.Key features of Malcat...

Hex Fiend

Hex Fiend is a popular and full-featured hex editor for macOS. As an open source tool, it is completely free to download and use. Hex Fiend enables users to view and edit the raw hexadecimal data of files on their system.With its simple and intuitive interface, Hex Fiend makes...

Kaitai Struct

Kaitai Struct is an open-source declarative language used to describe various binary data structures, lay out their serialization/deserialization algorithms, and generate source code in different programming languages. It aims to make parsing complex file formats easier by formally specifying the format, rather than writing hand-tuned parsing code.Some key...

Active@ Disk Editor

Active@ Disk Editor is a powerful, easy-to-use disk editing and data recovery software application. It provides a comprehensive set of tools for low-level disk editing and data recovery operations.With Active@ Disk Editor, users can access the raw contents of physical disks for viewing and editing purposes. This allows for...

Hex Workshop

Hex Workshop is a versatile hex editor for Windows that enables users to view, edit, and modify the raw binary contents of files. It supports a wide range of file types including executables, disk images, raw disk volumes, and more.Key features of Hex Workshop include:Intuitive tabbed interface for...

Batch Hex Editor

Batch Hex Editor is a lightweight hex editor program designed for basic hex editing operations. It provides a straightforward interface for opening files, navigating to offsets, viewing and editing the raw hex data or text representations.Some key features of Batch Hex Editor include:Open any file to view and...

MiTeC HexEdit

MiTeC HexEdit is a feature-rich hexadecimal editor, viewer and analyzer for files. It enables efficient inspection, editing and analysis of binary files such as executable programs, byte arrays, disks, memory and more in hexadecimal, decimal, octal, binary or ASCII. The tool is focused on speed, usability and workflow.Key features...

Preon

Preon is an open source Java library that can serialize Java objects into compact binary formats. It provides an alternative to text-based serialization protocols like JSON, XML, and YAML which can often result in bloated payloads.Some key features and benefits of Preon include:Lightweight and compact binary format -...

WxHexEditor

wxHexEditor is a free and open source hex editor application for Windows, Linux and macOS operating systems. It enables users to view, edit and analyze the hexadecimal code or raw binary data of files on their computer.Some of the key features of wxHexEditor include:Intuitive graphical user interface with...

Heraia

Heraia is an open-source, self-hosted project management and collaboration platform designed for software teams. However, it can be used by any team that needs to plan projects, manage tasks, and collaborate effectively.Key features of Heraia include:Kanban boards to visualize work and track progressCustomizable workflows to match your processTasks...

BinHex CryPactor

BinHex CryPactor is an email encryption software program that was developed in the early 1990s for Mac OS operating systems. It enables users to encrypt their email messages and digitally sign them using public key cryptography techniques including RSA and DSA.The main purpose of CryPactor is to provide confidentiality...

MadEdit-Mod

MadEdit-Mod is a free, open source text editor for Windows. It is a fork of the original MadEdit project with additional features and improvements added.Key features of MadEdit-Mod include:Lightweight and customizable interfaceSupports syntax highlighting for over 50 programming languages and markup languagesMacro recording and playbackCode foldingSplit editing for viewing...

Climacs

Climacs is a highly customizable, extensible, free and open-source text editor. It is designed specifically for efficient text editing and programming, allowing users to be very productive. Some key features of Climacs include:Ergonomic key bindings and modes tailored for text editing workflowsSupport for extensions and customizations through Emacs Lisp...

Hexplorer

Hexplorer is a feature-rich hex editor, disk editor and memory editor for Windows. It enables users to view, edit, analyze, modify and manipulate files, disks or memory in hexadecimal mode.Key features of Hexplorer include:Supports editing extremely large files beyond 4GB in sizeAdvanced data inspection with data interpretation, checksums...

Hecate

Hecate is an open-source platform for managing, storing, and querying blockchain data. It is designed to enable developers to easily build blockchain applications and services by abstracting away the complexity of working with raw blockchain data.Some key capabilities and benefits of Hecate include:Flexible data schemas - Hecate allows...

Hexer

Hexer is a free and open-source hex editor software for Windows and Linux operating systems. It provides users with advanced capabilities to view, edit, and analyze the binary contents of files in hexadecimal format.Some key features of Hexer include:Intuitive graphical user interface with multiple panels to view both...

FlexHex

FlexHex is a versatile and full-featured hex editor for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It enables users to view, edit, analyze, and compare binary files in an efficient and customizable interface.Some key features of FlexHex include:Multiple tabbed views to edit several files at onceVarious data visualization modes like hex...

FileInsight

FileInsight is software used for data discovery, file analysis, and risk detection. It scans files across an organization's systems, including file shares, SharePoint, Box, Dropbox, email servers, and more to analyze file content and metadata. Key features include:Sensitive data discovery - Identify files containing PCI, PII, PHI, financial data...

EverEdit

EverEdit is a cross-platform text and code editor developed by Coding Sense that combines ease of use with powerful functionality. Available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, EverEdit aims to be a versatile editor suitable for all programming and markup projects.At its core, EverEdit provides a streamlined yet...