AZazalemeth·Apr 23, 2026
I really like hexyl [1], which does this by default.
https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl
In Your hex editor should color-code bytessharkdp
hexyl
Rust2019–2026
sharkdp / hexyl
hexyl
A command-line hex viewer
11Distinct people
13Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
10.3KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
A command-line hex viewer
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year13 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2019-01-09 15:15:16 UTC to 2026-04-23 09:01:24 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 1 | 5 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
13 sourcesPerhaps interesting (for some) to note that hyperfine is from the same author as at least a few other "ne{w,xt} generation" command line tools (that could maybe be seen as part of "rewrite it in Rust", but I don't want to paint the author with a brush they disagree with!!): fd (find alternative; https://github.com/sharkdp/fd), bat ("supercharged version of the cat command"; https://github.com/sharkdp/bat), and hexyl (hex viewer; https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl). (And certainly others I've missed!)
Pointing this out because I myself appreciate comments that do this.
For myself, `fd` is the one most incorporated into my own "toolbox" -- used it this morning prior to seeing this thread on hyperfine! So, thanks for all that, sharkdp if you're reading!
Ok, end OT-ness.
In Hyperfine: A command-line benchmarking toolI noticed hexyl wasn't on your list: https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl
Your software seems to be in the same vein as hexyl. I can't personally vouch for how well it handles large files cause it's been a while, but I suspect it'll do alright.
In wxHexEditor — a Free Hex Editor / Disk Editor for Huge Files or DevicesHexyl: A command-line hex viewer with colorized output
212 points · Open discussionNo such list is complete without hexyl!
https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl
In New(ish) command line toolsYou might be interested in https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl
> hexyl is a simple hex viewer for the terminal. It uses a colored output to distinguish different categories of bytes (NULL bytes, printable ASCII characters, ASCII whitespace characters, other ASCII characters and non-ASCII).
In Reverse Engineer Amazon's WhispersyncHexyl is a simple hex viewer for the terminal
2 points · Open discussionFixed in v0.3.1 (https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl/releases/tag/v0.3.1) :-)
In Hexyl: A command-line hex viewerThank you! See: https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl/issues/6
In Hexyl: A command-line hex viewerThe format function is going to end up allocating a string for every single byte. That's a huge overhead.
Edit: Turns out to be about 22% overhead, see https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl/pull/23. Also it was 2 strings per byte, not 1.
In Hexyl: A command-line hex viewerPlease see: https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl/issues/9
In Hexyl: A command-line hex viewerLooks like the screenshots on Github are outdated. I just ran it locally and it does print out offsets in a new left-most column.
edit: Added in this commit: https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl/commit/91a119f4537f746045c8...
In Hexyl: A command-line hex viewerHexyl: A command-line hex viewer
456 points · Open discussion