Thursday 26 May 2011

Reflector alternatives

Enough has been said about the RedGate Reflector charging debacle, so I'll leave that alone. If you are looking for alternative software to decompile .NET code here are three to consider.

JustDecompile from Telerik
dotPeek from JetBrains
ILSpy which is open source

These are first impressions and not a review, I've not extensively used any of these so far.

JustDecompile:
  • Takes forever to download and install, requires registration before download.
  • The screen estate taken up by the logo is annoying, it's a developer tool not a beauty contest.
  • Apart from this the layout and fonts are good. 
  • Light on features.
  • Their forum answers indicate that it won't necessarily stay free.




dotPeek:
  • From the makers of ReSharper so high hopes for the future of this one.
  • Cleaner interface than JustDecompile.
  • Using the navigation pack from ReSharper so navigation is quick and easy.
  • Rather slow to decompile.
  • The early access version I tried didn't decompile delegate functions, instead leaving just a function name.
  • Will be checking this one out when it matures a bit as it has got a lot of potential.



ILSpy:
  • Open source, quick download and install.
  • Decompilation is snappy.
  • Simple and straight forward to use.
  • My choice for the time being, at least until dotPeek has got some more builds behind it.

Leave a comment below if you know of other good alternatives kicking around.

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