Binary Ninja vs Radare2: Which Software Auditing tool is Best in 2025?

Binary Ninja is a modern, open-source reverse engineering platform designed for disassembling, decompiling, and analyzing binary files across multiple architectures. Developed by Vector 35 Inc., a company founded by former CTF team members, Binary Ninja Free provides a downloadable, locally run tool for non-commercial use or evaluation, supporting limited architectures such as x86 and x86_64. Ideal for cybersecurity researchers, malware analysts, and students, it provides a clean GUI and robust analysis without requiring cloud uploads, unlike Binary Ninja Cloud.

Radare2 is an open-source, modular reverse engineering framework, pre-installed on Kali Linux at /usr/bin/r2, designed for analyzing binaries, disassembling code, and debugging software across multiple platforms. Initiated by Sergi Alvarez (pancake) in 2006, Radare2 offers a suite of command-line tools, a graphical interface (Cutter), and scripting APIs for tasks like malware analysis, firmware auditing, and exploit development. Supporting architectures such as x86, ARM, MIPS, and WebAssembly, it’s a favorite among cybersecurity researchers, ethical hackers, and CTF enthusiasts for its lightweight design and extensibility.