Hexer vs Code App
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Hexer
Inspect any file with a powerful hex viewer designed for iOS and iPadOS. Features include customizable color highlighting, advanced search and analysis tools, and seamless integration with the Files app for easy access to your documents.
- Customizable byte highlighting
- Advanced search with regex
- File signature detection
- Integer decoding
- Keyboard navigation
- Integration with Files app
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Hexer is a desktop level hex viewer packed with features. It was developed from the ground up for iOS and iPadOS. It is natural and intuitive to use for everyone. It is integrated with the Files app. So you can browse Dropbox, Google Drive, your git repositories, your downloads, your documents in iCloud Drive or your desktop. Or you can just share any file to it. Bytes are highlighted in different colors: Printable characters are cyan, spaces blue, null bytes grey, control characters pink and so on. The colors appear across the binary, hexadecimal, and ascii column — or can just be turned off completely. ▶ Many advanced options • Many popular themes from text editors and terminals • Line numbers (offsets) • Overscroll • Complete control over the formatting of what you copy or share • Column counts in powers of two (8 bytes, 16, 32, ...) or in any number that fits • Interpret bytes as ASCII, ISO Latin 1 or EBCDIC • The UI is navigable by keyboard and there are keyboard shortcuts to toggle almost everything • Further features for you to discover ▶ Search • Search for content in the hexadecimal, ASCII or binary column • Preview results with context and jump to and highlight them in the document • Filter results with Regular Expression and based on case sensitivity • Jump between results with arrow keys ▶ Analysis • Get information about the selection or the entire document • Decode to integers • See byte frequencies • See detected file signatures (magic numbers) • Read metadata like creation date and Unix permissions ▶ The App is made by a real person out of love When you buy the app (no hidden in app purchases) the money goes straight to me to support development. If you have any questions or feature requests you can just write me an email and let me know. I will continue development with many more planned features like editing. ▶ The App is friendly There are no in app purchases, ads, tracking, nor is there any data collected. You buy it once and then use it. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Code App
This app offers a desktop-class code editing experience on iPadOS. It includes built-in runtimes for popular languages like Node.js, Python, and Java, along with advanced features such as autocompletion and Git integration.
- Desktop-class code editor
- Built-in Node.js, Python, C, C++, PHP, Java runtimes
- Autocompletion and language features
- Local file system support
- SSH/FTP remote connection
- Embedded terminal
- Git version control
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Code App is a MIT-licensed desktop-class code editor for iPadOS with built-in Node.js, Python, C, C++, PHP and Java runtime. We built it because there is nothing else on the App Store provides all these features in one app: * A robust, high-performance text editor (Monaco Editor from Visual Studio Code) * Autocomplete, static code analysis and other language features for Python & Java * First class local file system support * Extensive local language support * SSH / FTP remote connection support (Files and terminal) * Embedded emulated terminal * Git Version Control * Package manager support (pip and npm) * Markdown, themes, server-side snippet execution and more Read Code App's documentation: code.thebaselab.com See the project's source code, roadmap, discussion on GitHub: github.com/thebaselab/codeapp Send us an email: support@thebaselab.com Privacy Policy: thebaselab.com/privacypolicies Terms of Use (EULA): www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Code App at monthly against Hexer's every 10 months. Code App also leads on chart position (#3 vs #72) and ratings volume (303 vs 26). Hexer's advantage is price ($3.99 vs $6.99) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 16.0). On rating, review sentiment, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Hexer costs $3.99 and Code App $6.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.1 for Hexer against 4.0 for Code App. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Code App has 303 ratings behind it against 26, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 63% of Hexer's written reviews are positive against 64% of Code App's.
Hexer ships an update every 10 months, Code App monthly. Both last shipped on October 20, 2026.
| Parameter | Hexer | Code App |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.99 — better | $6.99 |
| Rating | 4.1 (26 ratings) — better | 4.0 (303 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 62.5% of reviews | 63.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 26 | 303 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 10 months | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #72 | #3 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 16.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 6 MB | 963 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Hans Schulein | thebaselab Ltd |
Customer experience
Hexer
Code App
In-app purchases
Hexer
No in-app purchases
Code App
No in-app purchases









