When comparing P4Merge vs CodeCompare, the Slant community recommends P4Merge for most people. In the question“What are the best folder/file compare/diff tools for either OSX, Linux or Windows?” P4Merge is ranked 5th while CodeCompare is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose P4Merge is:
P4Merge is free of charge.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free
P4Merge is free of charge.
Pro 3 way merge support
P4Merge presents merge information in 4 panes - BASE, LOCAL, REMOTE and MERGE_RESULT.
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 followinggit 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.
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.
Pro Cross-platform with a good Mac port
P4Merge works on Windows, Linux and OS X.
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.
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
Pro Supports comparing folders
Can diff entire folders.
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.
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.
Pro Offers free version and paid for version
You get a lot more if you pay for the pro version.
Cons
Con Directory comparison is not supported
With P4Merge it's impossible to compare two different directories to find differences.
Con No longer supported
Problematic with Visual Studio 2022. Semantic code comparison (its main selling point) does not support newer language variations.
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.
Con Does not support move-detection
Very few programs detect move of blocks of code. Most just show deleted and added instead.
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.