dhex vs Q22
dhex
dettus.netQ22
catch22.netSide by side
| Figure | dhex | Q22 |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Hex Editors | 8.2 (#7) | 7.3 (#23) |
| Maker | The site's owner contact is Thomas Dettbarn, with a listed address in Fuerth, Germany. | The maker's About page identifies James Brown and says he lives in Hampshire, UK; it does not state a founding date. |
| Platforms | The maker says DHEX is known to run on Linux, HP-UX, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS X, IRIX, and Solaris. | The page lists Linux (Fedora currently) and Windows as supported platforms and says more are to come. |
| Purpose | DHEX is a hex editor with a diff mode for comparing two binary files. | Q22 is a cross-platform binary file editor and the successor to Catch22 HexEdit for Windows. |
Plans
In their own words
dhex
dhex is a free hex editor for inspecting binary files and comparing two of them in diff mode. It uses a terminal interface built on ncurses and is listed for Linux and macOS; the maker also says it is known to run on HP-UX, FreeBSD, NetBSD, MacOS X, IRIX, and Solaris. Search logs can help track changes between file iterations, and the editor supports themes that users can download or submit to the maker. Command-line search can find single words and quoted strings. The .dhexrc configuration file can set header colors, while a base-address option can help when loading partial memory dumps. A correlator introduced in version 0.64 can help match an object file to an executable for comparison. The maker provides downloads including version 0.69, listed as the latest update for the 0.6x branch and dated 19 January 2019. The maker warns that version 0.64 crashes at startup on some systems. dhex is free, with no free trial.
Q22
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.