werwolv/imhex

ImHex is a hex editor, a tool for viewing and editing binary files at the raw byte level, where each byte is shown as its hexadecimal representation. Standard text editors cannot make sense of binary files like compiled programs, firmware, game save files, or encrypted data. ImHex is designed specifically for reverse engineers (people who analyze software to understand how it works), security researchers, and programmers who need to work with binary data directly. What sets ImHex apart from basic hex editors is a rich feature set that turns it into a full binary analysis environment. Its custom pattern language, which resembles C++, lets you write scripts that describe the structure of a binary format and then automatically highlights the corresponding regions in the hex view with color-coded labels. You can write a pattern for a JPEG file header, a save game format, or a custom protocol, and ImHex will parse and visualize the data structure accordingly. The editor also includes a disassembler (which translates raw machine code back into human-readable assembly instructions), a visual node-based data processing tool for transforming bytes through operations like decryption or decompression, bookmarks, a data inspector that interprets selected bytes as many different data types simultaneously, and a diff view for comparing two files side by side. ImHex is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and also has a browser-based web version. It features a dark mode by default and supports themes and plugins. You would use ImHex when analyzing malware, reverse engineering a binary format, modding a game, or debugging low-level binary data. The tech stack is C++ using the Dear ImGui immediate-mode GUI library.