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Development
Linux
Productivity
What are the best Linux diff tools?
14
Options
Considered
275
User
Recs.
Dec 10, 2023
Last
Updated
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14
Options
Considered
Best Linux diff tools
Price
Platforms
License
76
Meld
$0.00
Linux; Windows; Mac (unofficial)
Free and Open Source
58
vimdiff
-
-
-
58
KDiff3
-
Windows, Linux, Mac
-
--
Beyond Compare
$60
Windows; Mac; Linux
Proprietary
--
Git
-
-
-
See Full List
76
Meld
My Rec
ommendation
for
Meld
My Recommendation for
Meld
All
27
Experiences
4
Pros
11
Cons
11
Specs
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
Con
•••
Slow on large files
While larger files are supported, they can take a long time to load. (20,000 lines+)
See More
OptimisticTriglav's Experience
Simple design
See More
Specs
Platforms:
Linux; Windows; Mac (unofficial)
License:
Free and Open Source
Top
Pro
•••
Fast on Linux
Relatively fast on Linux.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Very slow on comparing folders with many subfolders
See More
Chris Koknat's Experience
This is my favorite diff tool, I use it every day. However, without a preprocessor, it can be difficult and time-consuming to visually compare files because of formatting differences. For example: Different versions of code may differ only in comments and whitespace. Log files often contain "don't care" information such as timestamps or temporary filenames. The open source Linux tool 'dif' preprocesses input text files with a wide variety of options. Afterwards, it runs the tools meld, gvimdiff, kdiff3, or kompare on these intermediate files. https://github.com/koknat/dif
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Version Control Conflict Resolution & Actions
Meld supports the major version control systems (Git, Mercurial, Subversion and Bazaar). It can be used to resolve conflicts (manually resolve issues with merge and rebase). You can also launch file comparisons between different versions to see what parts changed before committing. Simple version control actions are also supported and possible. For example: commit/update/add/remove/delete files.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Similar lines aren't aligned
Similar lines and same lines are misaligned in diff panes. This makes comparing files almost impossible.
See More
OpinionatedSkeiron's Experience
best
See More
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
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
EnchantingAmmit's Experience
Failing to compare many types of files. Specially bidirectional txt files. On ubuntu sometimes view failed.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Clean GUI
See More
Top
Con
•••
Failing to compare many file types. Stuck.
Failing to compare many file types. Stuck.
See More
Top
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.
See More
Top
Con
•••
No Explorer context menu integration
In Windows, there is no option to right-click and compare files easily.
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
Con
•••
Mac version slow to start and looks Gnome-ish
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Simple GUI
See More
Top
Con
•••
Not having a base value to reference can make merging less certain
See More
Top
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.
See More
Top
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
See More
Top
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.
See More
Top
Con
•••
No common ancestor view in 3 way merge (4 pane)
The 3 way merge functionality is missing the common ancestor panel, that is extremely helpful for complex merge conflicts, where both A and B have diverged significantly from their common ancestor. This feature is available in KDiff and P4Merge.
See More
Top
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.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Missing contextual command line options
Not all contextual elements are exposed to the cli. Specifically the ability to follow our not follow symlinks, but also things like file system metadata parsing. These options and others can only be toggled via the gui's settings window.
See More
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$0.00
Recommend
105
9
58
vimdiff
My Rec
ommendation
for
vimdiff
My Recommendation for
vimdiff
All
12
Experiences
1
Pros
8
Cons
3
Top
Pro
•••
Intuitive visualization
The differences are visualized in split window panes. They are kept synchronized when scrolling. Each line with a difference is subtly highlighted while the difference itself is starkly highlighted. Long stretches of identical lines are collapsed.
See More
Top
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.
See More
WorthyTaBitjet's Experience
Doesn't show very small differences very clear (try to compare two termcap files with one letter difference)
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Lightweight
Since it's inside vim, it's very lightweight and fast. It fires up quickly and it does all operations painlessly.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Comparing folders recursively is NOT supported
See More
Top
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.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Careful with plugins
If you don't configure vim correctly, vimdiff might load plugins that clutter the screen and provide no useful information whatsoever.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Helpful to people who work a lot inside the terminal
Using command-line tools (vim/git) keep you stick in the terminal.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Integrates with git
Setting the diff.tool config to vimdiff and git will use vimdiff by default. Easy.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Shows line differences, and word differences within lines
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Excellent 4-way diff
Diffs between up to 4 files are supported, which Git invokes by default.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Can be used on servers to merge config file
If you do some sysadmin then you need to at least know of the command line diff tool.
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Hide
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Get it
here
Recommend
31
4
58
KDiff3
My Rec
ommendation
for
KDiff3
My Recommendation for
KDiff3
All
17
Pros
11
Cons
5
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Supports 3 way merges with common ancestor
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. KDiff uses a 4 panel system, showing Left, Right, Base (very important) at the bottom. The Base (common ancestor) panel is extremely helpful for complex merges where both Left and Right diverged significantly from their common ancestor.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Requires KDE libraries
This is a KDE app, which means it drags in half the KDE libraries together with it. If you are on Gnome, the installation becomes quite big.
See More
Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac
Top
Pro
•••
Can compare directories
It is able to compare whole directory trees
See More
Top
Con
•••
Confusing GUI
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.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
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.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Has problems with fonts
When highlighting, Fixed-size fonts and tabs are shown incorrectly, misaligned, and overwriting the text. Experienced on Ubuntu14/16, and quite hard to fix. Setting a different fixed-size font makes the problem. Can be a problem with the Gnome/KDE compatibility.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Supports editing files directly
In addition to comparing two files it also allows you to edit the merge result right in place.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Problems when files have different number of line
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.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
The UI is customizable
Allow customizing colors regardless of user/system theme.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Steep learning curve
KDiff3 has a lot of features that are not intuitive to figure out through the UI.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Free and open source
KDiff3 is completely free to download and use. It's also open source released under the GPL.
See More
Top
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.
See More
Top
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.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Diff by character not by lines
On comparing two files, difference is shown by characters; not by lines.
See More
Top
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.
See More
Top
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.
See More
Hide
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Get it
here
Recommend
29
4
--
Beyond Compare
My Rec
ommendation
for
Beyond Compare
My Recommendation for
Beyond Compare
All
19
Experiences
2
Pros
13
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Incredibly feature-rich
Supports comparing many different kinds of things, including csv files and folders.
See More
Top
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.
See More
Michael Shmulevich's Experience
Given that this is a commercial product, I have been using it for nearly 15 years and it never failed me. Features are plenty, useful, in-line editing, merging, 3-way diffs. This is a to-go tool for comparing the code changes for me.
See More
Specs
Platforms:
Windows; Mac; Linux
License:
Proprietary
Release Date:
October 19, 2023
Top
Pro
•••
Supports editing files directly
See More
Top
Con
•••
No touch support
This is important for scrolling.
See More
DiligentIshat's Experience
I've been a long-term fan of BeyondCompare...bought it for both home and work use. Getting ready to try the linux version.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Synchronize folders
Can be used to synchronize folders. Including wildcards.
See More
Top
Con
•••
No dark mode
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Supports comparing folders
Beyond Compare can be used to compare both files and folders. File-Filters possible.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Customizable diff rules
Use regular expressions to ignore specific aspects of the files.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Works well with large files
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Supports 3 way merge
Good overview. Clear display of changed lines (background color) and changed characters (foreground color).
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Permits structure free comparison of files
Similar file sets can differ in directory structure (multiple ad hoc backups to USB eg). BC allows removing paths to identify and eliminate duplicate and outdated files quickly and easily.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
One license covers all major OSs (Linux/Windows/Mac)
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Has rules for adding ignore-masks and replacement rules
So 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 changes important for you. For example with the ignore mask you're able to compare two logs with different timestamps but nearly the same content (beginning with timestamps the first x characters adding to ignore).
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
•••
Can be used to compare image files
This is a useful feature for game developers using Git.
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
Hide
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$60
Recommend
22
3
--
Git
My Rec
ommendation
for
Git
My Recommendation for
Git
All
3
Experiences
1
Pros
2
Top
Pro
•••
No additional tools needed
Chances are, you already have git. It is essential to creative work.
See More
Alexander Sheremet's Experience
git diff does a surprisingly good job finding differences between several files (even unversioned ones), and showing it in a console.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Cross-platform
Git works the same, whether you run it on Linux, Mac, Windows 10, or even WinXP.
See More
Hide
See All
Recommend
4
--
Sublimerge
My Rec
ommendation
for
Sublimerge
My Recommendation for
Sublimerge
All
4
Pros
3
Cons
1
Top
Con
•••
It's not free
Nither as free price nor as free in freedom.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Three-way diff allows easy merging of files
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Highlights intraline changes
See More
Top
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.
See More
Hide
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Get it
here
Recommend
12
1
--
Visual Studio Code
My Rec
ommendation
for
Visual Studio Code
My Recommendation for
Visual Studio Code
All
7
Pros
5
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Con
•••
No merge functionality.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Huge community behind it
The ease of getting assistance and finding tutorials is increasing as the community grows.
See More
Specs
Platforms:
Windows, macOS, Linux
License:
MIT, Proprietary (official builds)
Multi Language Support:
Yes
Auto Complete:
Yes
See All Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Libre/open source
Released under the MIT License.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Great performance
For a 'wrapped' web-based application, Visual Studio Code performs very well.
See More
Top
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.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Embedded Git control
Visual Studio Code has integrated Git control, guaranteeing speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows.
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FREE
Recommend
15
1
--
P4Merge
My Rec
ommendation
for
P4Merge
My Recommendation for
P4Merge
All
11
Pros
7
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
3 way merge with common ancestor (base)
P4Merge offers a 4 panel 3 way merge, where you can see how both Left and Right diverged from their common ancestor (middle panel) and the result is the bottom (4th) panel. The common ancestor is extremely useful for complex merges were both files have diverged significantly from their common ancestor and it's not obvious which side to take if you don't have a clear view of how they changed.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Directory comparison is not supported
With P4Merge it's impossible to compare two different directories to find differences.
See More
Specs
Platforms:
Windows; Mac; Linux
License:
Free
Top
Pro
•••
Clean UI
The UI is clean and the diff colours are non intrusive (pastel colors instead of bright red/green).
See More
Top
Con
•••
Can be slow on very big files
Over 10k lines.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Clever auto resolution
Because P4Merge takes the common ancestor in to consideration, it can resolve a lot of simple conflicts on it's own. At times you open a merge only to realize there's nothing for you to do, because it figured it out already.
See More
Top
Con
•••
UI can be confusing at first
P4Merge uses icons to identify Left, Right and Base, which can be confusing for new users, until they get used to the icons and the colors.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Cross platform
Supports Windows, Mac and Linux.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Configurable
It can be configured to ignore whitespace and/or line ending changes, which can be useful is someone fixed indentation along with their changes.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Free
P4Merge is free of charge.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Supports multiple file types
Can handle image diffs, not just text files.
See More
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Get it
here
Recommend
5
--
Diffmerge
My Rec
ommendation
for
Diffmerge
My Recommendation for
Diffmerge
All
5
Pros
3
Cons
2
Top
Pro
•••
Excellent support for selecting and rejecting lines common to two files
See More
Top
Con
•••
Nag ware
$19 to register right now, $39 regularly.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Handles large files well
See More
Top
Con
•••
Startup time can be slow
DiffMerge's startup time can be quite slow sometimes.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Three way merges
DiffMerge supports three way merges.
See More
Hide
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$39
Recommend
3
--
GNU Diffutils (diff)
My Rec
ommendation
for
GNU Diffutils (diff)
My Recommendation for
GNU Diffutils (diff)
All
4
Pros
4
Top
Pro
•••
Command Line Interface makes it easy to use for people who work a lot in the terminal
Great for creating patch files, using with other *nix utilities (for example, colordiff). Does not require a GUI.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Creates patches
These patches can be used to apply the differences to the same source file at a different storage location (different folder, different machine).
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Multiple formats
The difference can be output in formats known as normal, unified, ed, rcs, and side-by-side.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Compares entiry directory trees
Two directory trees can be compared file by file recursively. All differences are output concisely.
See More
Hide
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Get it
here
Recommend
9
2
--
SemanticDiff
My Rec
ommendation
for
SemanticDiff
My Recommendation for
SemanticDiff
All
1
Specs
Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac
License:
Proprietary
Syntax Highlighting:
Yes
Side-By-Side View:
Yes
Hide
Get it
here
Recommend
3
--
Kompare
My Rec
ommendation
for
Kompare
My Recommendation for
Kompare
All
4
Pros
3
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Supports comparing directories
Kompare can compare both files and directories.
See More
Specs
Platforms:
Linux
License:
Free and Open Source
Top
Pro
•••
Quite fast
Kompare works on big directory trees without problem.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Can create patch files
Kompare can create a patch file which lists the differences between two files. Patch files created this way are also compatible with the patch files created by the CLI diff utility.
See More
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here
Recommend
5
--
Emacs+Diff+Ediff+Emerge
My Rec
ommendation
for
Emacs+Diff+Ediff+Emerge
My Recommendation for
Emacs+Diff+Ediff+Emerge
Hide
Get it
here
Recommend
4
2
--
QtCreator/Qt
My Rec
ommendation
for
QtCreator/Qt
My Recommendation for
QtCreator/Qt
All
3
Pros
2
Cons
1
Top
Pro
•••
Cross platform
Qt supports most popular platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, and Mac OS X. This allows developers to easily port applications to different platforms.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Vendor lock on QtCreator
It's not simple at all to use Qt in a different IDE, and you'll lose QtDesigner.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Visual GUI designer
QtCreator has QtDesigner component, allowing you to design a GUI in visual mode instead of raw code.
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2
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