hexyl is a simple hex viewer for the terminal.
The program uses a colored output to distinguish different categories of bytes (NULL bytes, printable ASCII characters, ASCII whitespace characters, other ASCII characters and non-ASCII).
The program has attracted more than 5,500 GitHub stars.
hexyl is free and open source software.
Key Features
- skip / -s option can be used to skip the first N bytes of the input.
- Option to add a specified offset to the reported file positions.
- Support for squeezing where reoccurring lines are squashed together and visualized with an asterisk.
- Border option which offers support for various styles (Unicode, ASCII, and None).
- Control the color output.
- It can used as a library.
- Read-only mode.
Website: github.com/sharkdp/hexyl
Support:
Developer: David Peter
License: Apache License, Version 2.0 or MIT license

hexyl is written in Rust. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Console-Based Hex Editors | |
|---|---|
| hexyl | Colored command-line hex viewer |
| DHEX | ncurses-based hex editor with diff mode |
| hexedit | View and edit hexadecimal files |
| hyx | Minimalistic hex editor |
| hexer | Multi-buffer editor for binary files |
| hx | Hex editor using plain C and POSIX libs |
| Hextazy | Colorful hexadecimal editor |
| hexhog | Configurable hex viewer and editor |
| fileobj | ncurses based hex editor |
| HexMe | Written in C++ that uses the Curses library |
| hexcurse-ng | Written in C |
| ddhx | Simple multi-platform modal text UI hex editor |
| bvi | Based on the vi text editor |
| XVI | Hex editor using ncurses |
| Hexit | Minimalistic hex editor |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
| Alternatives to hexdump | |
|---|---|
| hexyl | Colored command-line hex viewer |
| DHEX | ncurses-based hex editor with diff mode |
| hexedit | View and edit hexadecimal files |
| hyx | Minimalistic but powerful hex editor |
| hexer | Multi-buffer editor for binary files |
| xxd | Make a hexdump or do the reverse |
| hx | Hex editor using plain C and POSIX libs |
Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Discovered a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |

