What are the main features of radare2?

Question

Radare2 is a framework for reverse-engineering gathering several tools (see this Phrack article about radare1 to know a bit more about the framework).

I would like to know if someone could point out the main useful features of the framework for reverse engineering ? And, particularly what makes radare2 different from other tools or frameworks ?

Answer 1

from its feature page:

• Multi-architecture and multi-platform
  • GNU/Linux, Android, *BSD, OSX, iPhoneOS, Windows{32,64} and Solaris
  • x86{16,32,64}, dalvik, avr, arm, java, powerpc, sparc, mips, bf, csr, m86k, msil, sh
  • pe{32,64}, [fat]mach0{32,64}, elf{32,64}, te, dex and java classes
• Highly scriptable
  • Vala, Go, Python, Guile, Ruby, Perl, Lua, Java, JavaScript, sh, ..
  • batch mode and native plugins with full internal API access
  • native scripting based in mnemonic commands and macros
• Hexadecimal editor
  • 64bit offset support with virtual addressing and section maps
  • Assemble and disassemble from/to many architectures
  • colorizes opcodes, bytes and debug register changes
  • print data in various formats (int, float, disasm, timestamp, ..)
  • search multiple patterns or keywords with binary mask support
  • checksumming and data analysis of byte blocks
• IO is wrapped
  • support Files, disks, processes and streams
  • virtual addressing with sections and multiple file mapping
  • handles gdb:// and rap:// remote protocols
• Filesystems support
  • allows to mount ext2, vfat, ntfs, and many others
  • support partition types (gpt, msdos, ..)
• Debugger support
  • gdb remote and brainfuck debugger support
  • software and hardware breakpoints
  • tracing and logging facilities
• Diffing between two functions or binaries
  • graphviz friendly code analysis graphs
  • colorize nodes and edges
• Code analysis at opcode, basicblock, function levels
  • embedded simple virtual machine to emulate code
  • keep track of code and data references
  • function calls and syscall decompilation
  • function description, comments and library signatures