Coding Horror: Visual Diff Tools Revisited

Dec 11, 2004

Visual Diff Tools Revisited

Back in June, I mentioned that my favorite visual differencing tool was Araxis Merge. A co-worker recently recommended that I try out Beyond Compare, so I downloaded the 30-day trial and spent an hour playing with it. It's definitely comparable to Araxis Merge. And in a lot of ways, it's better. But the real kicker is this:

Araxis Merge single license: $129. 5 or more, $83 each
Beyond Compare single license: $30. 5 or more, $17 each

Fatality.

It's better than Araxis Merge and it's one-third the price! Beyond Compare is the kind of finely crafted software that inspires you to register it. Give the 30-day trial version a shot and I bet you'll feel the same way.

BC not only matches Merge in terms of visual differencing features, but it also doubles as a kick ass project deployment tool. I like Unleashit, but sometimes you get what you pay for.

Because of the deep multiple license discount, we decided to buy five licenses for work. That's still $44 less than one copy of Araxis Merge! If you also decide to register BC, don't forget to download the filetype specific comparison plugins, too.

Posted by Jeff Atwood View blog reactions

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Comments

Hey - creator of Unleash It here, what problems or things do you feel would make Unleash It better?

Matt Hawley on December 12, 2004 5:12 AM

A feature of Beyond Compare that I particularly like is that one side of the comparison can be an FTP address. I use it to synchronize my development work with my company machine (I usually work from home); and to synchronize my web site with a local directory. It has an "exact copy" mode that will copy in both directions, but automatically back up files before it replaces them. An excellent program.

John Sands on December 12, 2004 9:42 AM

Unlea what? :)

Regular Reader, First Time Caller on December 13, 2004 3:08 AM

Hey - creator of Unleash It here

I try not to be critical of free software. And Unleash It is well written like all your stuff, Matt: http://www.eworldui.net/default.aspx

We did work with Unleash It for a while, but it doesn't offer the breadth of comparison options that BC does. I was also kind of annoyed that in the VS.NET ide it doesn't automatically remember the last settings I used for that project without making me jump through hoops. That would be my main complaint: Unleash It should automatically remember what I last did on a per-project basis.

Have you tried WinMerge

Screenshots here

http://winmerge.sourceforge.net/2.2/screenshots.php

I have heard of it, but haven't tried it. The WinMerge interface is.. kinda SourceSafe-y. But free is free!

Has anyone directly compared Beyond Compare and WinMerge?

Jeff Atwood on December 13, 2004 10:44 AM

What about free visualising tools?

haroeris_astrum on December 28, 2004 6:50 AM

Beyond Compare is definitely the best bang for the buck (even taking into consideration the free options). When looking for a comparison tools, I tried many of them before choosing BC. Araxis... *WAY* too expensive. 3-way merging is nice, but for over $200 more than BC? IDM UltraCompare is really new and still doesn't have all of the features of a more mature product... in fact, it looks like they are just coping BC. WinMerge looks a lot better now than when I originally looked at it... but is still missing many features that I need.

David P on March 1, 2005 2:20 AM

We have been ECSTATICALLY happy with BC.

My only complaint is that there isn't enough progress feedback for very long comparisons.. the only way you can tell one is in progress is via the folder indicator (which isn't very specific-- only shows the topmost compared folder even if you're comparing 1,000 subfolders), and that the "stop" toolbar button is active.

I'd like to know more substantively how long a comparision is going to take, and exactly what the progress is so far.

I highly recommend browsing around the BC forum; there's a nice community there with lots of cool tips, and you also get a sense of what's coming in the next version (eg, improved comparison progress feedback)

http://www.scootersoftware.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php

Jeff Atwood on March 2, 2005 12:39 PM

What about a comparison program for mac??? i been searching the net now for days for a decent one :s
I used winmerge on my windows machine and i guess its the best free software out there... The beyond compared trial did kick ass tho ... but yet, all on my windows machine.. I'm now using my mac for developing... and am not able to find a decent compare program :( :(

bastom on March 23, 2006 3:10 AM

Another interesting one I've used is "Compare It", from Grigsoft:
a href="http://grigsoft.com/wincmp3.htm"http://grigsoft.com/wincmp3.htm/a
Unfortunately, it only deals with file-to-file comparison. It cannot do directory comparisons.

irkregent on March 23, 2006 5:21 AM

you forgot this one:
a href="http://www.angusj.com/delphi/textdiff.html"http://www.angusj.com/delphi/textdiff.html/a

called textdiff, free.
Light, but nice.

mehdi on April 14, 2006 8:39 AM

Also test
http://kdiff3.sf.net
For 3-way merge!
Joachim

joachim on May 14, 2006 3:27 AM

What about a comparison program for mac???

Bastom, did you see this list?
a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_comparison_tools"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_comparison_tools/a

There are a few Mac programs between them also.

Peter on August 2, 2006 6:28 AM

3-way merge like Araxis, but nearly the price of BC... There's Elli Computing Merge (www.elliecomputing.com).

And it runs on Windows, Linux and Solaris.
Pretty sure the Mac port is on the way ;)
It worths a try.

Paul on September 22, 2006 8:41 AM

Mac tool (free) - Install developer tools from your OS cd

FileMerge

ecos1 on November 17, 2006 8:31 AM

I was a die hard BC user but a couple of things started to annoy me. So I looked around and came across WinMerge. Its great (and free). It has everything I wanted and more. The only thing was that initially put me off was the default coloring scheme. But now I have configured that just how I like. Also, if you find it isnt working exactly the way you want, have a look at all the options etc - I repeatedly found i could configure it just the way I wanted.

Phil on March 25, 2007 9:55 AM

Beyond Compare 3 Professional is coming later this year. It supports full-screen edit mode, syntax high-lighting, 3-way merge, and much much more. I've tried Araxis Merge. BC3 is gonna blow it away (IMHO).

Michael on April 3, 2007 10:57 AM

Does anyone know of a 3-way merge tool that integrates with CVS (or, ideally, WinCVS)?

TIA - Paul Sanders
http://www.alpinesoft.co.uk

Paul Sanders on October 29, 2007 6:29 AM

Hello again,

Played around with KDIFF3 a bit and came up with the following (Windows) batch file (run this from a command window for each offending file after doing a cvs update):

@echo off
if "%2" == "" goto usage

set filename=%1
set rev=%2

@echo on
cvs update -r %rev% -p %filename% f1
cvs update -p %filename% f2
copy .#%filename%.%rev% f3
start "kdiff3" "c:\program files\kdiff3\kdiff3.exe" f1 f2 f3 -m -o merged
@goto end

:usage
echo Usage: m3 filename base_rev
echo Example: m3 AboutDialog.cpp 1.6
echo Leaves merged output in file 'merged'

:end

Paul Sanders on October 29, 2007 7:17 AM

araxis merge offers 3 way compare, i've used it with subversion in the past

who on December 6, 2007 3:01 AM

Araxis is by far the way to go. I've used a lot of various compare/synch programs over the years and it is by far worth the extra few bucks.

David Levin on May 28, 2008 3:41 AM

I'm still hoping for a Mac version of Meld -- http://meld.sf.net/

Mike Gifford on August 30, 2008 12:22 PM

on Mac, there is still ECMerge (http://www.elliecomputing.com/) with a native version. not free though ($US 30)

bob on October 21, 2008 2:37 AM

There is a list of free alternatives for the linux folks which are reviewed here http://www.amjith.blogspot.com/2007/07/visual-diff-tools-in-linux.html

Amjith on February 5, 2009 10:26 AM

I recently evaluated diff/merge tools. So far the best alternative to BC on Mac seems to be DeltaWalker http://www.deltopia.com/compare-merge-sync/

Its multiplatform (Mac OS X, Windows, Linux) like ECMerge, but it has a much cleaner interface. Before I used KDiff3, but with DeltaWalker synchronization even of huge folders is now plain easy.

Andr on April 13, 2009 3:15 AM

Have you tried WinMerge (http://winmerge.sourceforge.net/) - it's got the best license cost of all - $0. I've been using it for several months pretty happily.

Stuart Dootson on February 6, 2010 9:29 PM

Beyond Compare is the best utility,I been using in for some time now,there is also,UltraCompare Professional from the makers of UltraEdit I test that too...but think BC is better in some ways...didnt compare the prices of these two though..

Anon on February 6, 2010 9:29 PM

A wonderful and simple diff tool is kompare for KDE.

Being part of kde it treats remote files on ftp servers etc the same as any local file. And of course is free.

David Wilkinson on February 6, 2010 9:29 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kompare.png

David Wilkinson on February 6, 2010 9:29 PM

Compare++(http://www.coodesoft.com/) is one of most intellectual diff tool. It can detect function changes and generate HTML and text report. A good feature is "Function View" which can visually display the difference between two versions of source code.

Here has a demo: http://www.coodesoft.com/videos/video_report.html

Chinson Liu on May 30, 2010 6:14 AM

BeyondCompare is my favourite merge tool. However, a great free tool is Perforce Visual Merge which is part of the P4V Suite:

http://www.perforce.com/perforce/downloads/component.html

Alex Roebuck on January 26, 2011 4:06 AM

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