When comparing Kdiff3 vs CodeCompare, the Slant community recommends Kdiff3 for most people. In the question“What are the best diff tools for Git?” Kdiff3 is ranked 1st while CodeCompare is ranked 11th. The most important reason people chose Kdiff3 is:
KDiff3 is completely free to download and use. It's also open source released under the GPL.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Free and open source
KDiff3 is completely free to download and use. It's also open source released under the GPL.
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.
Pro Can compare directories
It is able to compare whole directory trees.
Pro Supports editing files directly
In addition to comparing two files it also allows you to edit the merge result right in place.
Pro Diff by character not by lines
On comparing two files, difference is shown by characters; not by lines.
Pro The UI is customizable
Allow customizing colors regardless of user/system theme.
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.
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.
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.
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 Offers free version and paid for version
You get a lot more if you pay for the pro version.
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.
Cons
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.
Con Slow for large files
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.
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.