Bless vs Q22

Bless is a free binary editor for editing files as sequences of bytes. It supports multilevel undo and redo, customizable data views, multiple tabs, and fast find and replace. The project highlights efficient handling of large data files and raw disk editing, with search and save operations running in multiple threads. Bless exports to text and HTML, while plugins can add other export formats and extend the editor. It is written in C# with Gtk# bindings for GTK+ and distributed under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later. GNU/Linux is the main target; listed supported platforms are Linux and Windows, and the README says it should also run on *BSD, Solaris, and Win32. Building the current version requires GTK+, a Mono/.NET runtime and C# compiler, Gtk# bindings, pkg-config, and Meson. The GitHub releases page has no releases, and the README provides source-build instructions. NEWS lists version 0.6.3 dated 2020-10-11. Saving a changed-size file under the same name requires temporary space for both files; same-size files save in place.

Q22 is a free, open-source binary editor for Linux and Windows, and the successor to Catch22 HexEdit for Windows. It opens large binary files and supports cut, copy, paste, insertion, deletion, undo, and redo. Data can be viewed as hexadecimal, decimal, octal, binary, or text, with bytes grouped into 8-, 16-, 32-, or 64-bit values. Structure View expands headers, sections, imports, exports, and symbols in PE and ELF files, and accepts custom Strata .strata definitions. The disassembler handles x86 32-bit and 64-bit, ARM, ARM Thumb, and AArch64, while detecting PE and ELF entrypoints. Bookmarks and highlights retain positions for later use. Clipboard, import, and export formats include raw data, Base64, Intel HEX, Motorola S-records, HTML, C, C++, and assembler-style data. Panels provide file properties, checksums, and string extraction. Themes, palettes, preferences, docked panels, and platform-specific window chrome are configurable.