How do I evaluate Hex-Rays Decompiler without purchasing IDA Disassembler?

Question

Hex-Rays, providers of IDA Disassembler, offers a companion product called Hex-Rays Decompiler (not to be confused with HexRaysCodeXplorer, a plugin for the Decompiler plugin rather than for IDA itself). I would like to evaluate Hex-Rays Decompiler, but have found no means of doing so without purchasing a license for IDA Disassembler. And the lowest price I can find for that is $589 or $1129 for 64 bit support.

Hex-Rays states that IDA is also the solid foundation on which our second product, the Hex-Rays decompiler, is built. But while Hex-Rays offers both a demo version of IDA and IDA 5.0 Freeware, neither comes with the Decompiler, and I haven't found the Hex-Rays Decompiler available for sale or download separately.

Much of what attracts me to Hex-Rays is its decompiler, but it's difficult to justify purchasing IDA Disassembler just to evaluate Hex-Rays Decompiler. So, how do I evaluate Hex-Rays Decompiler without purchasing IDA Disassembler for $589? Thanks.

Answer 1

Hex-Rays Decompiler is an addition\extension for IDA Pro and I doubt it can work as a separate standalone product.

Please see "Prerequisites" part of Hex-Rays Decompiler Manual:

"The decompiler requires the latest version of IDA..."

https://www.hex-rays.com/products/decompiler/manual/prereq.shtml

But this question, IMO, should be addressed to the Hex-Rays Sales Department.

Answer 2

I suggest you look for decompiled code samples posted on the internet. That should give you a good indication of the decompiler's capabilities.

You can interactively decompile. Or also decompile in bulk. It decompiles a 22M binary containing 57k functions, totalling about 4.3M lines of code in about 1 hour. The decompilation can also be modified using pytbon scripts.

With some tweaking of variable and function types you can get very readable code. Also of c++ or objective-c with lots of virtual function calls.