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What is the best software to compare 2 folders for any file changes and highlight them?

9

Options
Considered

187

User
Recs.

1 hr

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 9 OptionsWhy?

Best software to compare 2 folders for any file changes and highlight them	Price	Platforms	License
90 Beyond Compare	$30-60	Windows; Mac; Linux	Proprietary
-- Meld	free	Linux; Windows; Mac (unofficial)	Free and Open Source
-- FolderMatch	$24.95-36	-	-
-- SyncToy	FREE	-	-
-- SmartSynchronize	-	OSX, Linux, Windows	-

Beyond Compare

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Top Pro

Supports comparing folders

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

Top Con

File compare: Deleted sections are torn

For each file content, there is no continues view - see first screenshot above: the stripped sections. See More

Mike's Experience

A no hassle, multi-platform compare tool. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; Mac; Linux

License:Proprietary

Top Pro

Works well with large files

Top Pro

Synchronize folders

Can be used to synchronize folders. Including wildcards. See More

Top Pro

Supports editing files directly

Top Pro

Can be used to compare image files

This is a useful feature for game developers using Git. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Has rules for adding ignore-masks and replacement rules

Parts you don't want to see in your comparison 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 you can compare two logs with different timestamps but nearly same content. (Beginning with timestamps the first x characters adding to ignore). See More

Top Pro

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

Top Pro

Actively updated

Seems to be regularly updated See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Can compare remote directories

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

8 Other Options Considered

Meld

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Top Con

No option to compare individual rows horizontally

Unlike other options, like Beyond Compare, Meld has no option to compare individual rows horizontally. See More

Top Pro

Works on Windows/Mac/Linux

Specs

Platforms:Linux; Windows; Mac (unofficial)

License:Free and Open Source

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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). See More

Top Pro

File and Text filter

Files can be filtered out depending on patterns with wildcard selectors. Text can be ignored with regex patterns. See More

Top Pro

Open source

Uses GPLv2 and MIT license. See More

AraxisMerge

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Top Pro

Update alternative files Word, PDF and even images

Top Con

Commercial

AraxisMerge is not free and it's quite expensive: $129 Standard and $269 Professional. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac

Top Pro

Three way merges

AraxisMerge supports three way merges. See More

Top Pro

Directory comparisons

AraxisMerge supports comparing different directories with each other. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Can Merge Local Dick Directory vs FTP / FTPS

Top Pro

Beautiful interface

CodeCompare

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Top 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. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows

License:FREE/$49,95

Dev platforms:Windows

Lexical Comparison:C#, C++, Visual Basic, JavaScript, Java, XML

Top Pro

Supports comparing folders

Can diff entire folders. See More

Top 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 See More

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