Compare software

Characters vs BabelMap: catalog facts
Characters	BabelMap
Best for: Finding and copying special characters and emoji on a GNOME desktop	Best for: Finding and inserting any Unicode character on Windows
Free Free and open source under the GPL-2.0-or-later and BSD-3-Clause licences.	Free Freeware with no paid edition.
Linux	Windows
Keyword search across Unicode characters Browse by category including emoji and math symbols All 3 strengths for Characters Keyword search across Unicode characters Browse by category including emoji and math symbols Actively maintained GNOME app	Covers the full Unicode repertoire, updated for each Unicode release Search by character name or code point All 4 strengths for BabelMap Covers the full Unicode repertoire, updated for each Unicode release Search by character name or code point Composite fonts with a different font per Unicode block Far more capable than the built-in Windows Character Map
Linux only Basic feature set aimed at lookup and copy	Windows only Closed source freeware
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Not open source
License: GPL-2.0-or-later AND BSD-3-Clause	License: Freeware
No account needed	No account needed
Offline features available	Offline features available
Official website Full listing and sources Sources for Characters apps.gnome.org/Characters Catalog checked October 1, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Sources for BabelMap babelstone.co.uk/Software/BabelMap.html Catalog checked October 2, 2026

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