PE Explorer Alternatives

PE Explorer is described as 'the most feature-packed program for inspecting the inner workings of your own software, and more importantly, third party Windows applications and libraries for which you do not have source code' and is an app in the development category. There are more than 50 alternatives to PE Explorer for Windows, Linux, Mac, PortableApps.com and BSD. The best PE Explorer alternative is Resource Hacker, which is free. Other great apps like PE Explorer are HxD, wxHexEditor, 010 Editor and Universal Extractor 2.

PE Explorer alternatives are mainly Text Editors but may also be File Comparison Tools or Anti-Malware Apps. Filter by these if you want a narrower list of alternatives or looking for a specific functionality of PE Explorer.

PE Explorer alternatives page was last updated

PE Explorer

Paid • Proprietary
Windows

PE Explorer is the most feature-packed program for inspecting the inner workings of your own software, and more...

Learn more about PE Explorer

Resource Hacker
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Proprietary
Windows
22 Resource Hacker alternatives
Resource Hacker™ is a resource editor for 32bit and 64bit Windows® applications.
- - Resource Hacker is the most popular Windows alternative to PE Explorer.
- - Resource Hacker is the most popular free alternative to PE Explorer.
Suggest and vote on features
Resource Hacker Features
1. PortableResource Hacker can be used from a USB stick or similar with no prior installation.
$Compiling can be initiated either by opening an existing resource script file, or by creating one from scratch using Resource Hacker's editor. A complete list of Resource-Definition Statements can be found here. Additional features of Resource Hacker's compiler include: The #INCLUDE directive (to access definition statements in header files etc) can be nested to multiple levels, as can the #IF, and #IFDEF directives. #DEFINE, #UNDEF, #IF, #ELIF, #ELSE, #IFDEF, #IFNDEF, #INCLUDE, and #PRAGMA directives are all supported. Strings, between double-quote (") characters, may contain typical 'C' style backslashed 'escaped' characters — \t , \n , \\ , \" , \x, \u and \377 (octal). A double-quote within a string must be 'escaped' using either a preceding backslash or with another double-quote. Script comments are preceded either by double forward-slashes (//) or by a semi-colon (;). Filenam...$

Comments about Resource Hacker as a Alternative to PE Explorer
Most users think Resource Hacker is a great PE Explorer alternative.
Guest
it only edits dialog stuff
Negative comment•
0

Guest
Resource Hacker better handles icons and such includes whereas PE Explorer for viewing code.
Negative comment•
6
HxD
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Proprietary
Text Editor
Windows
53 HxD alternatives
HxD is a carefully designed and fast hex editor which, additionally to raw disk editing and modifying of main memory (RAM), handles files of any size.
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HxD Features
1. PortableHxD can be used from a USB stick or similar with no prior installation.
2. No registration requiredYou can use most of the features in HxD without registration.
3. LightweightHxD consumes less device resources compared to similar apps.
4. Ad-freeHxD doesn't contain any form of external advertising.
Hex Editor
Disk editor
Comments about HxD as a Alternative to PE Explorer
This alternative is disputed. HxD is still a legitimate PE Explorer alternative, but it might have issues that some users think are important.
Guest
HxD is just a hex editor, it does not support any PE functionality, like parsing the headers.
Negative comment•
7
wxHexEditor
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Text Editor
File Comparison Tool
Mac
Windows
Linux
BSD
52 wxHexEditor alternatives
wxHexEditor is an open source cross-platform disk/sector/file hex editor written in C++ with a wxWidgets-based user interface.
- - wxHexEditor is the most popular Mac & Linux alternative to PE Explorer.
- - wxHexEditor is the most popular Open Source alternative to PE Explorer.
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wxHexEditor Features
1. PortablewxHexEditor can be used from a USB stick or similar with no prior installation.
Hex Editor
Key binding
Hexadecimal
Visual Programming
ASCII Editor
Disk editor
Support for Unicode
Disassembler
Discontinued
The project seems no longer developed since 2020. Last version, 0.24, released in December 2017, can be still downloaded from SourceForge and GitHub
010 Editor
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Paid • Proprietary
Text Editor
File Comparison Tool
Mac
Windows
Linux
46 010 Editor alternatives
010 Editor is a professional text/hex editor designed to edit any file, drive, or process on your machine. Using Binary Templates technology, 010 Editor allows a binary file to be parsed into a data structure that can be understood.
- - 010 Editor is the most popular commercial alternative to PE Explorer.
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010 Editor Features
Hex Editor
Disk editor
Universal Extractor 2
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Windows
24 Universal Extractor 2 alternatives
Universal Extractor 2 is an unofficial updated and extended version of the original UniExtract by Jared Breland. It brings several hundred changes including community-wanted ones such as a batch mode, auto-updater and scan-only-functionality.
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Universal Extractor 2 Features
1. PortableUniversal Extractor 2 can be used from a USB stick or similar with no prior installation.
Multiple languages
Malcat
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Freemium • Proprietary
Decompiler
Windows
Linux
22 Malcat alternatives
Malcat is a feature-rich hexadecimal editor / disassembler / decompiler for reverse engineers and malware analysts. It has support for many file formats and CPUs, can scan for signatures, decrypt/decompress data, diff files and run python scripts.
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Malcat Features
1. Malware AnalysisMalcat can inspect a suspicious file or URL to detect potential threats.
2. Extensible by Plugins/ExtensionsMalcat can be extended with add-ons, plugins and extensions.
Disassembler
Hex Editor
Static analysis
Hexadecimal
Dependency Walker
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Proprietary
Windows
5 Dependency Walker alternatives
Dependency Walker is a free utility that extracts a hierarchal tree of dependencies from any 32- or 64-bit Windows executable module (EXE, DLL, OCX, SYS, DRV, etc.), including those that were built for Windows CE.
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Dependency Walker Features
Dependencies
Debugging
Discontinued
Program has been discontinued
Okteta
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Windows
Linux
40 Okteta alternatives
Okteta is a simple editor for the raw data of files. This type of program is also called hex editor or binary editor. The data is displayed in the traditional view with two columns: one with the numeric values and one with the assigned characters.
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Okteta Features
Hex Editor
pestudio
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Freemium • Proprietary
Anti-Virus App
Anti-Malware App
Windows
12 pestudio alternatives
pestudio implements a rich set of features that is especially designed to retrieve every single detail of any executable file. Results are checked against the Microsoft specification. Additionally, the content of the file being analyzed is checked against several white and black...
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pestudio Features
1. Portablepestudio can be used from a USB stick or similar with no prior installation.
2. Malware Analysispestudio can inspect a suspicious file or URL to detect potential threats.
Static analysis
In-Depth Analysis
Explorer Suite
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Proprietary
Windows
7 Explorer Suite alternatives
Created by Daniel Pistelli, a freeware suite of tools including a PE editor called CFF Explorer and a process viewer. The PE editor has full support for PE32/64. Special fields description and modification (.
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Explorer Suite Features
Disassembler
WinHex
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Paid • Proprietary
Text Editor
File Recovery Tool
Windows
41 WinHex alternatives
WinHex is a hexadecimal editor capable of opening disks, sectors, files (native support for FAT, NTFS, Ext2/3, ReiserFS, Reiser4, UFS, CDFS, UDF) and physical memory (RAM). It can read, write and extract data for a further forensic analysis.
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WinHex Features
Disk editor
ASCII Editor
Support for Unicode
Hex Editor
Dependencies
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Windows
5 Dependencies alternatives
Dependencies is a rewrite of the legacy software Dependency Walker which was shipped along Windows SDKs, but whose development stopped around 2006. Dependencies can help Windows developers troubleshooting their dll load dependencies issues.
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Dependencies Features
Debugging