Comparison of file comparison tools

This article compares computer software tools that are used for accomplishing comparisons of files of various types. The file types addressed by individual file comparison apps varies but may include text, symbols, images, audio, or video. This category of software tool is often called "file comparison" or "diff tool", but those effectively are equivalent terms — where the term "diff" is more commonly associated with the Unix diff utility.

A typical rudimentary case is the comparison of one file against another. However, it also may include comparisons between two populations of files, such as in the case of comparing directories or folders, as part of file management. For instance, this might be to detect problems with corrupted backup versions of a collection of files ... or to validate a package of files is in compliance with standards before publishing.

Note that comparisons must be made among the same file type. Meaning, a text file cannot be compared to a picture containing text unless an optical character reader (OCR) process is done first to extract the text. Likewise, text cannot be compared to spoken words, unless the spoken words first are transcribed into text. Additionally, text in one language cannot be compared to text in another, unless one is translated into the language of other.

A critical consideration is how the two files being compared must be substantially similar and thus not radically different. Even different revisions of the same document — if there are many changes due to additions, removals, or moving of content — may make comparisons of file changes very difficult to interpret. This suggests frequent version saves of a critical document, to better facilitate a file comparison.

A "diff" file comparison tool is a vital time and labor-saving utility, because it aids in accomplishing tedious comparisons. Thus, it is a vital part of demanding comparison processes employed by individuals, academics, legal arena, forensics field, and other professional endeavors — to identify sometimes hard-to-spot differences needed for detecting.

These uses include:

• Revisions of texts, plans, or drawings.
• Edit changes in media.
• Omission of credit for quotes, citations, extracts, or exemplars.
• Plagiarism.
• Alteration of legal documents.
• Fraud.
• Forgery.
• Fakery, or "deepfake" to impersonate.
• Disputes over ownership or credit for cooperative efforts.
• Chronology of evolution of a project or effort.
• Detect steganography (the practice of hiding data in plain sight).
• Uncover removal of watermarks.
• Intentional defacement.
• Identification of graffiti, tattoo, or other cultural mark with a signature style.
• Unintentional or incidental damage.
• Changes in health of living being.
• Risk evaluation of propagation of structural damage.
• Evaluation for restoration.
• Degradation due to effects of environmental exposure over time, including natural entropy (decline over time):
  • Oxidation.
  • Rain exposure.
  • Abrasion from wind-driven sand.
  • Weathering from environmental changes in temperature, such as caused by freeze-thaw cycles.
  • Fugitive (i.e. no permanent) pigments in paintings or printed materials from exposure to ultraviolet light.
  • Exposure to vibration, such as industrial processes are from vehicular traffic.

General

Basic general information about file comparison software.

Name	Creator	FOSS	Free	First public release date	Year of latest stable version	Windows	Macintosh	Linux	Other platforms	Max supported file size
Beyond Compare	Scooter Software^[1]	No; Proprietary	No	1996	2023-10-19 (v4.4.7)	Yes	Yes	Yes		> 2GB (64 bits)
Compare++	Coode Software^[2]	No; Proprietary	No	2010	2016-7-17 (3.0.1.0b)	Yes^[3]	No	No
diff, diff3	AT&T	Yes; BSD 3-clause, BSD 4-clause, CDDL, GPL, Proprietary	Yes	1974		No	Yes (Mac OS X)	Yes	ported to most platforms as part of SCCS	> 2GB but less than 64 bits
Eclipse (compare)		Yes; Eclipse Public License	Yes	2004-07-21	2016-09-28 (4.6.1 (Neon.1))	Yes	Yes	Yes	Anything with Java
Ediff	Michael Kifer^[4]	Yes; GPL	Yes	1994	2.81.4	Yes^[a]	Yes (Mac OS X)	Yes	Anything with Emacs and diff
ExamDiff Pro	PrestoSoft^[5]	No; Proprietary	No	1998	2022-06-04 (v 12.0.1.22)	Yes (WinXP and up)	No	No
Far Manager (compare)	Eugene Roshal (original); FAR Group	Yes; Revised BSD license	Yes	1996	2022-02-02 (v3.0 build 5959)	Yes	No	No	There's a beta-version of far2l,^[6] a Linux fork of FAR Manager v2 which also works on OSX/MacOS and BSD.
fc	Microsoft^[7]	No; Proprietary	Yes; Part of OS	1987		Yes (DOS)	No	No
FileMerge (aka opendiff)	Apple Inc.	No; Proprietary	Yes; (part of Apple Developer Tools)	1993 (part of NEXTSTEP 3.2^[8])	2014 (v2.8)	No	Yes (Mac OS X)	No
FreeFileSync[data missing]	Zenju	Yes; GPLv3	Yes	2008	2023-10-23 (v13.2)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Guiffy SureMerge	Guiffy Software^[9]	No; Proprietary	No	2000	2023-05-02 (v12.2)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Anything with Java	> 2GB
IntelliJ IDEA (compare)	JetBrains^[10]	No; Proprietary	No	2001	2019-08-20 (2019.2.1)	Yes	Yes	Yes
jEdit JDiff plugin	Various^[11]	Yes; GPL	Yes	1998	2020-09-03 (5.6.0)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Anything with Java
Lazarus Diff	Lazarus (software)	Yes; GPL	Yes	2000	2020-07-11 (2.0.10)	Yes	Yes	Yes	FreeBSD
Meld	Stephen Kennedy^[12]	Yes; GPLv2+	Yes	2002	2020-02-16 (3.20.2)	Yes^[13]	Yes	Yes	BSD, Solaris
Notepad++ (compare)	Various	Yes; GPLv3	Yes	2009	2015-01-06 (1.5.6.6)	Yes^[14]	No	No
Perforce P4Merge	Perforce	No; Proprietary	Yes		2019 (2019.1/1815056)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Sun Solaris
Pretty Diff	Austin Cheney^[15]	Yes; MIT-compatible	Yes	2009	2019-09-02 (101.2.6)	Yes (Web)	Yes (Web)	Yes (Web)	Node.js
Tkdiff	Tkdiff^[16]	Yes; GPLv2+	Yes	2003 (or before)	2021-03-24 (v5.2.1)	Yes (Tcl)	Yes (Tcl)	Yes (Tcl)	Anything with Tcl
Total Commander (compare)	Christian Ghisler^[17]	No; Proprietary	No		2020-03-25 (v9.51)	Yes	No	No
twdiff (TextWrangler Diff Helper)[data missing]	Bare Bones Software, Inc.^[18]	No; Proprietary	Yes; with TextWrangler		2012 (1.0 (v22))	No	Yes	No	No
vimdiff	Bram Moolenaar et al.	Yes; GPL-compatible^[19]	Yes	2001	2016-10-03 (v8.0.0022)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Anything with vim
WinDiff	Microsoft^[20]	No; Proprietary	Yes; Part of Platform SDK	1992	2010-05-14 (v6.1.7716.0)	Yes	No	No	No
WinMerge	Dean Grimm^[21]	Yes; GPL	Yes	1998	2022-01-27 (v2.16.18)	Yes (Win95 and up)	Yes (in wine^[22])	Yes (in wine^[22])		2 GB
KDiff3[data missing] (part of KDE SDK,^[23] as well as a plug-in to KDE Dolphin file manager)^[24]^[25]	Joachim Eibl and KDE SDK KDiff3 Team^[26]	Yes GPL v2	Yes	<2004 (v0.9.86)	2023-01-13 (v1.10)	Yes as part of KDevelop KDE SDK download site or from Windows store or KDE download site (most recent version) as separate application.	Yes Can be downloaded from KDE SDK download site or as separate stand-alone application from KDE download site	Yes Install from your Linux distribution repositories, or as AppStream, from [1], or as GIT project KDE Gitlab^[27] or from/on [2].^[28]	Any other Unix with KDE/KF5, Qt5 and CMake, e.g. FreeBSD^[29] & NetBSD^[30]	?
Name	Creator	FOSS	Free	First public release date	Year of latest stable version	Windows	Macintosh	Linux	Other platforms	Max supported file size

Compare features

Name	Show in-line changes	Directory comparison	Binary comparison	Moved lines	3-way comparison	Merge	Structured comparison^[b]	Manual compare alignment	Image compare
Beyond Compare	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (Files and Folders)	Yes (Pro only)		Yes	Yes
Compare++	Yes	Yes			Yes	Yes	Yes (C/C++,C#,Java,Javascript,CSS3)
diff	No	Yes	partly	No	No	No
diff3	No	No			Yes (non-optional)
Eclipse (compare)	Yes				No (only ancestor)	Yes		No
Ediff	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes
ExamDiff Pro	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes^[31]	Yes (ExamDiff Pro Master only)^[32]	Yes		manual synchronization
Far Manager (compare)	Yes (Via plugin)^[33]	Yes	Yes	Yes (Via plugin)^[33]	No	No
fc	No	No	Yes		No	No
FileMerge (aka opendiff)	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes (optional ancestor)	Yes
Guiffy SureMerge	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes
IntelliJ IDEA (compare)	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes
jEdit JDiff plugin	Yes				No	Yes
Lazarus Diff
Meld	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes		line alignment, unlink scroll
Notepad++ (compare)	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	No
Perforce P4Merge	Yes	No	No		Yes	Yes			Yes
Pretty Diff	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	No
Tkdiff	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Total Commander (compare)	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	resync comparison	No
vimdiff	Yes	Yes (via DirDiff plugin)			Yes	Yes
WinDiff	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
WinMerge	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (via Options)	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes
Name	Show in-line changes	Directory comparison	Binary comparison	Moved lines	3-way comparison	Merge	Structured comparison^[b]	Manual compare alignment	Image compare

API / editor features

Name	GUI	CLI	Scripting	Horizontal / vertical	Syntax highlighting	Reports
Beyond Compare	Yes	Yes	Yes	Both	Yes	XML, HTML, CSV, Text, Unix Patch
Compare++	Yes	Yes		Both	Yes	HTML, Text(combined or side-by-side)
diff	No	Yes		Horizontal	Yes pipe to diff-highlight^[34]
diff3	No	Yes		Horizontal
Eclipse (compare)	Yes			Vertical	Yes
Ediff	Yes	Yes	elisp	Both	Yes
ExamDiff Pro	Yes	Yes		optional	Yes	UNIX, HTML, Diff
Far Manager (compare)	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes	No
fc	No	Yes		Horizontal
FileMerge (aka opendiff)	Yes	Yes		Vertical	Yes	No
Guiffy SureMerge	Yes	Yes	Java API	Both	Yes	HTML, Text, Unix Patch
IntelliJ IDEA (compare)	Yes	Yes		Vertical	Yes
jEdit JDiff plugin	Yes			Both	Yes
Lazarus Diff	Yes				Yes
Meld	Yes	No			Yes	No
Notepad++ (compare)	Yes	Yes		Both	Yes	No
Perforce P4Merge	Yes	Yes		Vertical	Yes	No
Pretty Diff	Yes	Yes	JavaScript	Both	Yes	XHTML
Tkdiff	Yes
Total Commander (compare)	Yes			Both	No	No
vimdiff	Yes	Yes	vim script	Both	Yes	HTML
WinDiff	Yes	Yes		Horizontal	No	Text
WinMerge	Yes	Yes		Both	Yes	CSV, Tab-delimited, HTML, XML
Name	GUI	CLI	Scripting	Horizontal / vertical	Syntax highlighting	Reports

Other features

Some other features which did not fit in previous table

Name	ZIP support	FTP support	SFTP support	Version control browsing	Patch creation	Patch application	Patch preview	Unicode support	XML-aware
Beyond Compare	Yes	Yes	Yes	SVN	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Compare++				SVN, CVS, Git, Microsoft TFS, Perforce, VSS using command line				Yes
diff	No	No		No	Yes	Yes with patch	Yes with patch	No	No
diff3	No	No							No
Eclipse (compare)				Yes CVS, Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Baazar				Yes
Ediff	Yes	Yes		RCS, CVS, SVN, Mercurial, git (anything supported by Emacs' VC-mode)^[35]	Yes	Yes	Yes
ExamDiff Pro	Yes^[36]	Yes^[37]			normal diff only			Yes
Far Manager (compare)	No	No		No	No	No	No	Yes	No
fc	No	No			No
FileMerge (aka opendiff)	No	supported by OS			No			No	No
Guiffy SureMerge	Yes				Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes^[c]
IntelliJ IDEA (compare)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
jEdit JDiff plugin	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Lazarus Diff
Meld				CVS, Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Baazar	Yes			Yes
Notepad++ (compare)	No	Yes^[38]		Git, Subversion (compare against base)	No	No	No	Yes	No
Perforce P4Merge				No				Yes
Pretty Diff	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Tkdiff	No	No		CVS, RCS, Subversion	No	No	No	No	No
Total Commander (compare)	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	No
vimdiff	Yes	Yes			Yes			Yes
WinDiff	No	No			No			No
WinMerge	Yes	No		Mercurial,^[39] Subversion,^[40] Visual Source Safe, Rational ClearCase^[41]	Yes			Yes
Name	ZIP support	FTP support	SFTP support	Version control browsing	Patch creation	Patch application	Patch preview	Unicode support	XML-aware

Aspects

What aspects can be / are compared?

Name	Filename casing	CRC	Filedate	Daylight saving	Character casing
Beyond Compare	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Compare++	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes
diff	Yes	No	No	No	Optional
diff3
Eclipse (compare)
Ediff
ExamDiff Pro	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Far Manager (compare)	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
fc	No				Optional
FileMerge (aka opendiff)	No	No	No		Optional
Guiffy SureMerge	filesystem dependent		Yes		Yes
IntelliJ IDEA (compare)
jEdit JDiff plugin
Lazarus Diff
Meld
Notepad++ (compare)	No	No	No		Yes
Perforce P4Merge	—	No	No	No	Yes
Pretty Diff	—	No	No	No	Optional
Tkdiff
Total Commander (compare)			Optional	Yes (in synchronize only)	Optional
vimdiff	No	No	No	No	Yes
WinDiff	No	No	when different	Yes	Optional
WinMerge	No	No	Optional		Optional
Name	Filename casing	CRC	Filedate	Daylight saving	Character casing

Time zone effects

When files are transferred across time zones and between Microsoft FAT and NTFS file systems, the timestamp displayed by the same file may change, so that identical files with different storage histories are deemed different by a comparer that requires the timestamps to match. The difference is an exact number of quarters of an hour up to 95 (same minutes modulo 15 and seconds) if the file was transported across zones; there is also a one-hour difference within a single zone caused by the transition between standard time and daylight saving time (DST). Some, but not all, file comparison and synchronisation software can be configured to ignore the DST and time-zone differences.^[d] Software known to have daylight-saving compensation is marked in the Aspects table.

See also

• File comparison
• File synchronization
• Comparison of file synchronization software
• List of disk cloning software
• Comparison of disk cloning software
• Comparison of hex editors

Notes

1. Ediff requires a diff utility to function. As of December 2017, diff is not bundled with Emacs or Windows, so use of Ediff in a Windows environment requires installation of both Emacs and a diff implementation like GNU diff.
2. Compare logical sections (class, methods).
3. UTF8, UTF16, MBCS, SJIS, over 150 file encoding and character set formats.
4. Example: "Beyond Compare" help describes a user setting "timezone differences – ignores timestamp differences that are multiples of an exact hour."

References

1. Scooter Software
2. . Archived from the original on 2018-12-21. Retrieved 2020-12-13.
3. Compare++ Operating system information
4. Michael Kifer
5. PrestoSoft
6. "Far2l". GitHub. 26 July 2022.
7. Microsoft
8. NeXT Product Marketing (Fall 1993). "What's New in Release 3.2?". NEXTSTEP in Focus. NeXT Computer, Inc. 3 (4). Retrieved 18 July 2014.
9. Guiffy Software
10. JetBrains
11. jedit.org
12. Stephen Kennedy
13. Meld/Windows
14. Notepad++ compare plugin
15. Pretty Diff
16. tkdiff
17. Christian Ghisler
18. Bare Bones Software, Inc.
19. vim license
20. Microsoft
21. Dean Grimm
22. WinMerge in Wine
23. "KDE SDK Project Page". KDE Invent: KDE SDK. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
24. "KDiff3". KDE Applications. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
25. "The KDiff3 Handbook". docs.kde.org. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
26. "KDE KDiff3". Retrieved 2023-03-09.
27. "KDevelop / KDevelop · GitLab (full KDevelop project)". GitLab. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
28. "Using KDiff3 as a Git Diff and Merging Tool". docs.kde.org. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
29. "FreeBSD/Setup/Ports - KDE Community Wiki". community.kde.org. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
30. "pkgsrc.se | The NetBSD package collection". pkgsrc.se. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
31. Examdiff
32. Examdiff
33. Visual Compare
34. "Git/Contrib/Diff-highlight at master · git/Git". GitHub.
35. gnu.org Support-for-Version-Control
36. through a plug-in
37. through a plug-in
38. Notepad++ FTP plugin
39. . Bitbucket.org. Archived from the original on 2010-07-15. Retrieved 2010-07-06.
40. . Winmerge.org. Archived from the original on 2010-07-10. Retrieved 2010-07-06.
41. . WinMerge. Archived from the original on 2010-07-03. Retrieved 2010-07-06.