What are the best diff tools for Git?

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Considered

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Recs.

Feb 2, 2024

Last
Updated

Kdiff3 vs P4Merge vs Beyond Compare

vs Kaleidoscope vs Visual Studio Code vs WinMerge vs vimdiff vs DiffMerge vs CodeCompare vs Diffinity vs Intellij IDEA Community Edition vs AraxisMerge vs diff-so-fancy vs CodeReview vs Sublimerge vs delta vs SemanticDiff vs difftastic vs Meld

Specs

Platforms

Windows, Linux, Mac

License

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

Side-by-side view

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

Windows; Mac; Linux

License

Free

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

Side-by-side view

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

Windows; Mac; Linux

License

Proprietary

Release Date

October 19, 2023

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

Side-by-side view

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

Mac

License

Proprietary

Release Date

Pricing Model

Subscription ($8/month)

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

Side-by-side view

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

Windows, macOS, Linux

License

MIT, Proprietary (official builds)

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Yes

Auto Complete

Yes

Bracket Matching

Yes

Integrated Debugger

Yes

Code Templates

Yes

Error Markup

Yes

Source Control Integration

Git

Extension language

JavaScript

Plugin Manager

Yes

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

Side-by-side view

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

Windows

License

Free and Open Source

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

Side-by-side view

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

License

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

Side-by-side view

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

License

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

Side-by-side view

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

Windows

License

FREE/$49,95

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

Windows

IDE Integration

Visual Studio, Android Studio, Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA

VCS Integration

TortoiseSVN, TortoiseHg, TortoiseGit, Team Foundation Server, SmartSVN, Mercurial, Git, Visual SourceSafe 2005, AnkhSVN, RapidSVN, Perforce

Structure Comparison

C#, C++, JavaScript, Java, Visual Basic, XML

Lexical Comparison

C#, C++, Visual Basic, JavaScript, Java, XML

Syntax Highlighting

Side-by-side view

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

Windows

License

Free

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

yes

Side-by-side view

yes

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

Windows, Linux, Mac

License

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

Side-by-side view

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

Windows, Mac

License

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

Side-by-side view

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

License

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

Side-by-side view

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

multi-platforms

License

Free and GPLv3

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

Most languages

Side-by-side view

yes

stage/unstage file

yes

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

License

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

Side-by-side view

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

Linux, Windows, Mac

License

MIT

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

yes

Side-by-side view

yes

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

Windows, Linux, Mac

License

Proprietary

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

Yes

Side-by-side view

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Yes

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Platforms

Linux, Mac, Windows

License

MIT

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

Side-by-side view

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

yes

Syntax highlighting

yes

Platforms

Linux; Windows; Mac (unofficial)

License

Free and Open Source

Release Date

Pricing Model

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Bracket Matching

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Extension language

Plugin Manager

Dev platforms

IDE Integration

VCS Integration

Structure Comparison

Lexical Comparison

Syntax Highlighting

Side-by-side view

stage/unstage file

Side-By-Side View

Side-by-side-view

Syntax highlighting

Pros + Cons

Pro
Supports 3 way merges

For modern version control systems, 3way merge support is a basic requirement, but many other open source diff viewers do not adequately handle 3way merges.

Comment

Pro
Free and open source

KDiff3 is completely free to download and use. It's also open source released under the GPL.

Comment

Con
Cannot do inline diffs

Comparison of 2 files is always side-by-side and there's no option for inline views. Overall a rather poor and confusing UI in general.

Comment

4 sub-windows (when you really only need 3), a lot of different colors and even more confusing result-window. No links what has changed between versions and and the result. It clearly shows it's dated or rather outdated. Great if you ever need to do a command line merge, otherwise it sucks.

Comment

Pro
Can compare directories

It is able to compare whole directory trees.

Comment

Pro
Supports editing files directly

In addition to comparing two files it also allows you to edit the merge result right in place.

Comment

Pro
Diff by character not by lines

On comparing two files, difference is shown by characters; not by lines.

Comment

Con
No precise editing of the compared files

Precise work line-after-line is not possible. Only a version after the automated merge-step is editable, but not the two files separately.

Comment

Con
No longer supported by Homebrew for MacOS

Cannot be installed easily on Mac as of Aug 2019.

Comment

Pro
The UI is customizable

Allow customizing colors regardless of user/system theme.

Comment

Con
Problems when files have different number of lines

For example, if you add 3 lines: A, B and C locally but on the other change there are only A and C, Kdiff3 will work out that A was added, then it says that B conflicts with C but adds C again anyway.

Comment

Pro
Supports manual code aligning

With selecting code in one window and hitting Ctrl+Y, then selecting some other code in second window and also hitting Ctrl+Y you can manually align the code.

Comment

Pro
Preprocessing before calculating differences

There are options that may pre-process compared files before Kdiff3 actually do a comparison - to ignore for example automatically generated dates and/or revision numbers added by commit hooks.

Comment

Con
Slow for large files

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Context menu shortcut

You can right-click a folder/file and the options: Save <file> for later Compare with will be available, making launching KDiff3 really convenient.

Comment

Con
No image compare

Compare is text based.

Comment

Pro
Free

P4Merge is free of charge.

Comment

Pro
3 way merge support

P4Merge presents merge information in 4 panes - BASE, LOCAL, REMOTE and MERGE_RESULT.

Comment

Pro
Detects minimal changes without having a common ancestor

After a merge sometimes you have conflicts. You can resolve them by using a merge tool. You can run git mergetool --tool-help to get more details about what tools are supported. You will get an output like the following git mergetool --tool=<tool> may be set to one of the following: p4merge tortoisemerge vimdiff vimdiff2 vimdiff3 The following tools are valid, but not currently available: araxis bc bc3 codecompare deltawalker diffmerge diffuse ecmerge emerge gvimdiff gvimdiff2 gvimdiff3 kdiff3 meld opendiff tkdiff winmerge xxdiff Some of the tools listed above only work in a windowed environment. If run in a terminal-only session, they will fail.

Comment

Pro
Also has image diffing

For those who are working in both text based source code or files, as well as images, its nice to have the diff functionality of both present in the same product.

Comment

Pro
Cross-platform with a good Mac port

P4Merge works on Windows, Linux and OS X.

Comment

Con
Directory comparison is not supported

With P4Merge it's impossible to compare two different directories to find differences.

Comment

Pro
Supports comparing folders

Beyond Compare can be used to compare both files and folders. File-Filters possible.

Comment

Pro
Supports 3 way merge

Good overview. Clear display of changed lines (background color) and changed characters (foreground color).

Comment

Pro
Supports editing files directly

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Has rules for adding ignore-masks and replacement rules

So parts you don't want to see in your comparision can be hidden with ignore masks. Parts that are okay to be changed can be set with change-lists so beyond compare knows what's the replacement value and skips displaying this. So you can focus on the for you important changes. For example with the ignore mask I was able to compare two logs with different timestamps but nearly same content. (beginning with timestams the first x characters adding to ignore)

Comment

Pro
Synchronize folders

Can be used to synchronize folders. Including wildcards.

Comment

Pro
Works well with large files

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Can be used to compare image files

This is a useful feature for game developers using Git.

Comment

Pro
Opens popular archive formats as directories

Compare archive to directory or to another archive, update ZIP archives by copying files from other side or by editing them directly in compare view.

Comment

Con
No dark mode

Lack dark mode.

Comment

Pro
Can compare remote directories

Beyond Compare can compare directories through FTP, SFTP. Also it can compare directories hosted on Dropbox or Amazon S3.

Comment

Pro
One license covers all major OSs (Linux/Windows/Mac)

[add description]

Comment

Con
No touch support

This is important for scrolling

Comment

Pro
Customer Service is awesome and easy to work with

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Has Registry compare

You can compare Registry vs Registry or Registry vs .REG file, both local and remote. You can copy values and keys between sides or edit them.

Comment

Pro
Has file conversion/preprocessing feature

You can run a script or executable based on file extension before showing a file. Great for beautifying XML, extracting text from MS Office documents, running dis-asm etc.

Comment

Con
Paid proprietary software

Beyond Compare is not free. It offers different license options depending on the number of members in a team and depending on the software version.

Comment

Con
Mac OS only

Kaleidoscope is a Mac OS X only app.

Comment

Con
Paid software

Kaleidoscope is not free, costing $69.99.

Comment

Pro
Simple UI

Kaleidoscope has a beautiful and simple UI. It displays the two files that are being compared side to side, highlighting all the differences in a way that's easy to understand.

Comment

Pro
Diff within a line

When working in code, line-by-line diff can still be hard to spot small changes within the line. Kaleidoscope will highlight what has changed.

Comment

Pro
Supports comparing folders

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Image difference viewer

Kaleidoscope supports image diff viewer in addition to git diff. It's able to find even the slightest changes between two versions of the same image.

Comment

Con
Embedded Git isn't powerful enough

You can do nothing but to track changes, stage them and commit. No history, visualization, rebasing or cherry-picking – these things are left to git console or external git client.

Comment

Pro
Ready to use out of the box

You don't need to configure and add plugins before being productive. However, you can add plugins if needed but for the basics you're well covered.

Comment

Con
poor git merge

During git conflict the merge is opened inline, this is really frustrating and completely childish , we need a 3 way merge.

Comment

Con
Rendering very large file diffs can freeze the application.

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Great performance

For a 'wrapped' web-based application, Visual Studio Code performs very well.

Comment

Pro
Updated frequently

There's a new release of Visual Studio Code every month. If you are one of the insiders then releases are daily.

Comment

Pro
Active development

It's really nice to see how the code editor evolves. Every month there is a new version with great communication of new features and changes.

Comment

Pro
Custom snippets support

Snippets are templates that will insert text for you and adapt it to their context, and in VSC they are highly customizable.

Comment

Pro
Fast and powerful

VS-Code has the speed of Sublime and the power of WebStorm. Perhaps this is the best software that Microsoft has ever created.

Comment

Pro
Huge community behind it

The ease of getting assistance and finding tutorials is increasing as the community grows.

Comment

Con
The autocomplete and code check is not as powerful as the one on WebStorm

Sometimes it doesn't tell you if you made a typo in a method name or if a method is not used and several other important features.

Comment

Pro
Libre/open source

Released under the MIT License.

Comment

Pro
Integrated task runners

Task runners display lists of available tasks and performing these tasks is as simple as a click of the mouse.

Comment

Pro
ESLint integration

ESLint integrates great. You can define your rules trough .eslintrc.* as usual and vs code will autofix your code on save. So your code is always in style.

Comment

Pro
Extensions (aka plugins) are written in JavaScript

Extensions are written in either Typescript or JavaScript.

Comment

Pro
Integrated terminal

There's no need to press alt+tab to go to a terminal: it is directly integrated into the editor. Shift+~ is a handy hotkey to toggle the integrated terminal.

Comment

Pro
JavaScript IntelliSense support

JavaScript IntelliSense allows Visual Studio Code to provide you with useful hints and auto-completion features while you code.

Comment

Pro
Integrated debugging

VSC includes debugging tools for Node.js, TypeScript, and JavaScript.

Comment

Pro
Embedded Git control

Visual Studio Code has integrated Git control, guaranteeing speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows.

Comment

Pro
TypeScript integration

There is very solid TypeScript integration in Visual Studio Code. Both are developed by Microsoft and VSC itself is written in TypeScript.

Comment

Pro
Extendable through plug-ins

Visual Studio Code comes fairly complete out of the box, but there are many plug-ins available to extend its functionality.

Comment

Pro
Compare folders and files

Can show what files has been changed in a folder, allows comparing files in tabs.

Comment

Pro
File edition

You can quickly copy changed lines (or files in folder comparison) in both directions with keyboard shortcuts. You can edit the files as well, with syntax highlighting of some languages.

Comment

Pro
In line comparison

Can show differences within a line.

Comment

Pro
Free & Open source

Winmerge is a free and open source tool.

Comment

Pro
Good shell integration

Select two files and compare them. Alternatively, select one file, navigate elsewhere, select the other file to compare. Also supports drag'n'drop of files / folders from Explorer. History of past comparisons.

Comment

Pro
Lightweight, quick startup

Binary is less than 3 MB, so it starts quickly

Comment

Con
Windows only

It's only available for Windows. No Mac or Linux versions available. It is possible to run in Linux via WINE, although a bit unstable.

Comment

Pro
Filters

Can filter out files for folder comparison, lines for file comparisons, with regular expressions. Options also allow to ignore whitespace differences, white lines, case change, line-ending changes, etc.

Comment

Pro
Good navigation

Keyboard shortcuts (and toolbar buttons) to navigate to next (previous) difference, side panel shows a map of the files with changed lines and allows to jump to a given place.

Comment

Con
Development is spotty

The latest version (2.16.0) was released in November 2018. Before that the last official release was made in 2013. The 2.16.0 is actually one of the two forks (Winmerge-v2-jp) that were kept maintained throughout the years, it just got named as the official release. The other fork, WinMerge2011 is still being actively developed too. It's on par with the historical version, and has additional features such as showing only differences and a 64-bit version. An 'official' list of forks is maintained here.

Comment

Pro
Good detection of moved lines

Detects when a block of lines has been moved in the file and shows the relation.

Comment

Con
No 3-way merge

Cannot merge 3 files, can do only comparisons by pairs. Makes it unsuitable for merging operations, still useful to compare two versions in the history.

Comment

Pro
Mouse-free interface

It's practically vim, this means that the whole interface is mouse-free, this increases development speed significantly since you are only using the keyboard.

Comment

Pro
Lightweight

Since it's inside vim, it's very lightweight and fast. It fires up quickly and it does all operations painlessly.

Comment

Pro
Helpful to people who work a lot inside the terminal

Using command-line tools (vim/git) keep you stick in the terminal.

Comment

Con
Not for people who are not used to vim

Since this is basically a vim feature, it's clear that people who aren't used to vim and it's keyboard-based interface would find it very hard to work with vimdiff.

Comment

Pro
Completely free

DiffMerge is free of charge to download and use for both commercial and open source projects. There's no license needed. However, people who want to contribute to the project monetarily can do so.

Comment

Pro
Cross platform

DiffMerge is cross platform and is available for all major operating systems. This means WIndows, Linux and OSX

Comment

Pro
Folder compare

[add description]

Comment

Con
Startup time can be slow

DiffMerge's startup time can be quite slow sometimes.

Comment

Pro
Three way merges

DiffMerge supports three way merges.

Comment

Con
No longer supported

Problematic with Visual Studio 2022. Semantic code comparison (its main selling point) does not support newer language variations.

Comment

Pro
Graphical showing of where code is added or removed

It does not add a blank line in the other code-pane to show where code was added or deleted. It simply draws a line to show point out its location.

Comment

Pro
Three-way comparison and automatic merging

Three comparison panes with horizontal and vertical layouts Integrates with version control systems as the merging tool for conflicting file revisions Non-conflicting changes are merged automatically Merging conflicts are highlighted One-click conflict resolution with a mouse button

Comment

Pro
Supports comparing folders

Can diff entire folders.

Comment

Pro
Integrated into Visual Studio

Can be used either as a stand-alone product or as the built in diff/merge tool for Visual Studio.

Comment

Pro
Clear overview that marks only the changes, not every line with a change

Most compare tools mark every changed line with colour, making the code just a mess with thousands of coloured lines, while all that might be changed is a sign/character on each line. Code Compare draws boxes around each changed segment and highlights only the real change with a colour.

Comment

Pro
Offers free version and paid for version

You get a lot more if you pay for the pro version.

Comment

Con
Does not support custom comment markings

Some compilers use ";" to specify in-line commenting. But as that is not a common method, all added comments are marked as new code. So it becomes difficult to find changes in the functionality of the code.

Comment

Con
Does not support move-detection

Very few programs detect move of blocks of code. Most just show deleted and added instead.

Comment

Con
Free version is limited

Whereas there is a free version, it is missing a lot of great features that you're forced to pay for if you want.

Comment

Pro
Fast and smart contextual assistance

Uses a fast indexing technique to provide contextual hints (auto-completion, available object members, import suggestions). On-the-fly code analysis to detect errors and propose refactorization.

Comment

Pro
Smart refactorings

IDEA places an emphasis in safe refactoring, offering a variety of features to make this possible for a variety of languages. These features include safe delete, type migration and replacing method code duplicates.

Comment

Pro
Merges with ease with one click arrows

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Reliable diff results

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Synchronized scroll

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Options to ignore white spaces and line breaks

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Buit-in Git support

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Highlights words or lines - your choice

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Stable and robust

IntelliJ IDEA hardly ever crashes or has any issues that plague other Java IDEs like file corruption or slowness.

Comment

Pro
Support for many languages

IntelliJ supports many languages besides Java, some of these are: golang, Scala, Clojure, Groovy, Bash, etc.

Comment

Pro
Embedded database support

Creating an embedded database, running SQL script in a dedicated terminal, viewing tables and their contents, and creating a connection to an in-memory or embedded database is fully supported.

Comment

Pro
Student benefits

Verify yourselves as a student to get more perks.

Comment

Pro
Many convenient features

These simplify the daily work, e.g. copy/cut a whole line without the need to select it.

Comment

Pro
Very powerful debugger

With ability to step into a certain part of a large method invocation (Shift+F7), drop frame, executing code snippets, showing method return values, etc.

Comment

Pro
Free version available

There is a free community edition (open source) and an ultimate edition, which you can compare here. The ultimate edition is available for free for one year for students but must be registered through an .edu e-mail account.

Comment

Pro
Android support, JavaEE support, etc

A very complete development environment support.

Comment

Pro
Intuitive and slick UI

IDEA has a clean, intuitive interface with some customization available (such as the Darcula theme).

Comment

Con
Unreliable

The diff tool might show two branches are equal and then you download each branch in a separate folder, compare the folders with other tools and you see a whole load of differences.

Comment

Pro
Lots of plugins

Many plugins are available for almost any task a developer may need to cover. Plugins are developed by JetBrains themselves or by 3rd parties through the SDK available for writing them.

Comment

Con
Slow startup

Because of the nature of this diff tool - it is a full fledged IDE.

Comment

Pro
Built-in Git support

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Point and click merging

AraxisMerge has a feature which is very helpful especially for beginners. By clicking on different parts of a text file you can select all the parts to added in a final merged file. The comparison display also updates real-time as the merge happens.

Comment

Pro
Directory comparisons

AraxisMerge supports comparing different directories with each other.

Comment

Con
Commercial

AraxisMerge is not free: $129 Standard and $269 Professional But this is peanuts for a tool that you can use all day for the rest of your developer life.

Comment

Pro
Beautiful interface

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Three way merges

AraxisMerge supports three way merges.

Comment

Pro
Update alternative files Word, PDF and even images

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Works great on large files

[add description]

Comment

Pro
UNIX command line differ compatible with version control tools

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Clone of qbzr diff viewer

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Built-in support for Git, Subversion and Mercurial commands

Sublimerge automatically integrates with your version control history, and lets you compare between revisions, branches, remotes, and the staging area.

Comment

Pro
Highlights intraline changes

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Three-way diff allows easy merging of files

[add description]

Comment

Con
Pure git merge tool

Only for git diff/merge operations. Is not useful for diffing files.

Comment

Con
Dark theme is not free

[add description]

Comment

Pro
sublimerge

i recommend Sublimerge

Comment

Pro
Packaged for many distros

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Cross platform

Supports Linux, Windows and Mac.

Comment

Pro
MIT license

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Supports theming

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Customizable

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Nice documentation

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Word level differences

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Syntax highlighting

[add description]

Comment

Pro
character level diff

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Can diff directories

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Syntactic diffing

Down to a character.

Comment

Pro
Cross platform

Linux, Mac and Windows.

Comment

Pro
Supports over 20 languages (and some other syntax)

c, c++, c#, java, python, go, javascript, json, rust, sql, html, css and more. See here.

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Pro
Language autodetection

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Pro
Has a manual

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Pro
Supports other version control tools

Like Mercurial.

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Pro
Works with Magit

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Pro
MIT license

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Pro
Has syntax highlighting

That can be turned off.

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Con
Can be confused with syntax at times

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Pro
Supports editing files directly

In addition to comparing two files it also allows you to edit them right in place. What's more, the diffs are updated automatically.

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Pro
Free and open source

Meld is freely available on Linux, Windows and OSX (through MacPorts, Fink or Brew). It's also open source and distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

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Pro
Comparing two or more different folders is supported

Meld allows users to compare two or three different folders for differences. But if a user wants to 'zoom in' and compare files contained in these folders, Meld gives you the ability to do so and launch file comparisons between files contained in different folders or in the same folder.

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Pro
Supports some simple version control actions

Meld supports the major version control systems (Git, Mercurial, Subversion and Bazaar). You can launch file comparisons between different versions to see what parts changed before commiting. Simple version control actions are also supported and possible. For example: commit/update/add/remove/delete files.

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Pro
Three way comparisons

You can compare up to three different files for differences. Plus you can edit files from the comparison view and the diff will automatically update.

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Pro
Simple GUI

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Pro
Easy to use and visually appealing

Stragihtforward and you don't need to read tutorials to use it. Just click and select and you instantly see how the difference and merges are connected to eachother. 3 sub- windows, instead of 4, which reduces the mess during merge and let you see more of the surrounding files rather than just 5 lines.

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Con
Slow on large files

While larger files are supported, they can take a long time to load. (20,000 lines+)

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Con
Program opens slow on Windows

Update: This issue should be fixed on Meld-3.18.1-win32.msi released on 27 May 2018. See http://meldmerge.org/news.html

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Con
Very slow mac OS port

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Pro
Fast on Linux

Relatively fast on Linux.

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Pro
Internationalization

Through the GNOME Translation project and the translators that have worked for it, Meld is available in multiple languages. You can check if your language is supported in the translation statistics page. If you can't find your language or if your language translation is unfinished and you want to help, you can do so by joining the GNOME Translation Project.

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Con
Python 3 not supported

May or may not be an issue, but if you are trying to standardize on Python 3 for all new projects, having to keep 2.7 around just to support a merge tool might not be ideal.

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