BinEd vs GNU hexedit

BinEd is a free, open-source binary and hex viewer and editor written in Java. It shows data as hexadecimal codes and text, with binary, octal, and decimal modes. Editing supports Unicode and other character sets, insert or overwrite modes, text or hexadecimal search with highlighted matches, and undo and redo. The maker says the editor supports files up to exabytes; on Android, that capacity is qualified as partial file mode. BinEd runs on desktop platforms supporting Java 8 or later, and is also available as an Android APK and browser demo. The project uses Apache License 2.0, though additional addons may have different licenses. Listed integrations include NetBeans, IntelliJ, Eclipse, JDeveloper, BlueJ, jEdit, Autopsy, and Ghidra. The feature list marks byte-for-byte comparison as complete and search/replace as partial in the editor application. The maker also lists possible Java heap-space freezes after many large modifications, possible delta-mode corruption if another application changes files simultaneously, and memory leaks.

GNU hexedit is a free Linux terminal program for viewing and editing file contents as hexadecimal values or ASCII text. It can read a device piece at a time, search forward or backward for strings in either representation, and save edits. Selection commands allow marking, copying, pasting, saving a copied region to another file, and filling a selected area with a string. The --sector option displays whole sectors and makes scrolling advance sector by sector. Keyboard commands control the terminal interface; --color works only when supported by the operating system. Changes remain in memory until saved, so large fill operations may trigger a warning. Read-only files cannot be changed and are reported as non-writable. The author describes hexedit as open source under the GNU General Public License. The maker page links to source archive 1.6, while Git builds use ./autogen.sh && ./configure && make. It supports disk editing but has no binary comparison, templates, scripting, or plugins.