AptDiff is a freeware that’s now discontinued, but still available to download through some. Kaleidoscope by Black Pixel is a Mac app that’s dedicated to comparison—not only.
Meld
Being free and open source, Meld is a very popular tool on Windows (it's also available for Linux). It supports three-way comparing and merging and lets you edit files directly from the comparison view. Apart from diffing files, Meld also supports comparison of folders.
Beyond Compare
The Beyond Compare team makes a fine diff tool for Windows (as well as macOS and Linux, by the way). It goes well beyond (pun intended) diffing simple text and also allows comparing PDF, Excel and image files. The 'Pro' version also includes a solid three-way merge.
Araxis Merge
Just like Beyond Compare, Araxis Merge supports more than just text and image files. It also lets you compare office documents (like MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, or ODF). It comes in standard and professional editions, and for people working on both Windows and macOS, it's good to know that a single license is valid for both platforms.
KDiff3
Another free and open source tool answers to the name of KDiff3. The project hasn't seen many updates in recent years (though you may be able to find more recent releases through this page), but it remains a solid diff and merge tool that should satisfy basic needs.
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DeltaWalker
Much like Araxis, the DeltaWalker diff tool also lets you compare office files. However, it goes one step further by letting you compare file archives like ZIP, JAR, and TAR files. If you're regularly performing comparisons on a folder basis, it's good to know that DeltaWalker shines with great performance in this area. DeltaWalker supports Windows, macOS and Linux.
P4Merge
Perforce, the company best known for its enterprise version control platform, also offers a solid diff tool: P4Merge is free of charge and comes with a basic feature set that makes it an interesting option on Windows, macOS and Linux.
Code Compare
Besides offering all the standard diff and merge capabilities, Code Compare comes with some special features like syntax highlighting, semantic code comparison and a VisualStudio integration.
The basic version can be used free of charge, while the Professional Edition delivers the full feature set.
The basic version can be used free of charge, while the Professional Edition delivers the full feature set.
WinMerge
WinMerge is an open-source diff tool with some nice features like folder and image comparison, and three-way file comparison.
Guiffy
Guiffy is a full-featured tool with syntax highlighting, three-way comparisons and merges, and multiple comparison algorithms. It comes in pro and expert versions, and supports Windows, macOS and Linux.
Integrations
Another aspect to watch out for is integrations: before choosing your favorite tool, you should make sure that it plays nicely with the rest of your tool chain. I can already confirm that most of the mentioned tools work seamlessly with Tower, our own Git client.
If you don't need the power of a dedicated Diff tool application, the integrated diff views in Tower might even be sufficient for you:
See for yourself and try it 30 days for free.
Conclusion
Diff & merge apps are amongst the most underestimated tools. But a good one can be really helpful in a lot of situations. Try one of the above and see for yourself!
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Meld for OSX
This is a fork of Meld packaged and bundled for OSX. The original website for Meld is here http://meldmerge.org. Minor work has been done to also integrate OSX menu and shortcuts, but the app is truly the original, excellent Meld.
Download OSX dmg file
You may download any of the following versions. The 3.21.0 (r2) is the latest and the recommended version at this point.
- Version 3.21.0 (r2) Latest (Catalina & Mojave)
- Version 3.19.2 (r5) (Mojave & High Sierra)
- Version 3.19.2 (r3) (Mojave & High Sierra)
- Version 3.19.0 (r1) (Previous stable version - High Sierra)
- Version 3.16.0 (r1) (Not for High Sierra)
- Version 3.15.4 (r2) (Not for High Sierra)
- Version 3.15.2 (r2) (Not for High Sierra)
- Version 3.13.4 (Not for High Sierra)
- Version 1.8 (Not for High Sierra)
Tip: A lot of people are asking how to use this package as a git difftool/mergetool.Once installed, edit your
~/.gitconfig
and add the following linesTip:Meld OSX also understands/checks for the following environment variables.
The theme change can be done by changing the variable in the wrapper script
find the part that says
and change it to
and you'll have a fully dark meld..
Why Meld for Mac/OSX and not Macports/Homebrew
Top reasons behind using this fork over Macports or Homebrew builds:
- Retina support (check the screenshot!)
- Latest 3.x series
- No hassle install (drag/drop like any other app)
- Integrates with OSX menu
Supports standard OSX shortcuts (cmd-c/cmd-v instead of ctrl)(Merged to upstream)- Note: Homebrew now installs Meld for OSX
Screenshot
Special Thanks
- To Kai Willadsen http://meldmerge.org/ for creating Meld.
- To the Gnome project https://www.gnome.org/
- To Alex Kras whose web page (How To Run Meld on Mac OS X Yosemite Without Homebrew, MacPorts, or Think) served as my reference for tracking Meld for OSX usage and issues when I had absolutely no time to maintain this.
TODO
- Get rid of the Meld wrapper shell script (this should get rid of all the wrappers needed to run Meld from the terminal)
- Support Meld localizations (currently only English works)
Suggestions / Issues
If you have a suggestion or you are facing an issue running this Meld fork, please open an issue here https://github.com/yousseb/meld/issues. Please note that your issue has to be specific to the OSX fork and not to Meld itself. I have no plans/time to work on Meld itself.
Contribute to Meld for OSX
- Head to https://github.com/yousseb/meld
- Fork the repository and clone your fork locally.
- Follow the build instructions in https://github.com/yousseb/meld/blob/master/osx/README.md to generate your own dmg.
- Do your magic, commit and push to your fork.
- Create a pull request.
Not Accepting Donations
I'm not currently accepting donations for the development of this fork. I just missed a proper implementation of Meld on Mac so I thought of creating this fork. If you want to donate, please donate to the original Meld project.
File Diff Software For Mac
The following is copied from the original Meld page http://meldmerge.org/. Please visit the original project website for more info. For the full help manual, please visit http://meldmerge.org/help/.
What is Meld?
Mac Compare Two Folders
Meld is a visual diff and merge tool targeted at developers. Meld helps you compare files, directories, and version controlled projects. It provides two- and three-way comparison of both files and directories, and has support for many popular version control systems.
Meld helps you review code changes and understand patches. It might even help you to figure out what is going on in that merge you keep avoiding.
Features
- Two- and three-way comparison of files and directories
- File comparisons update as you type
- Auto-merge mode and actions on change blocks help make merges easier
- Visualisations make it easier to compare your files
- Supports Git, Bazaar, Mercurial, Subversion, etc.
- …and more
Meld is licensed under the GPL v2, except as noted
In depth features
File comparison
- Edit files in-place, and your comparison updates on-the-fly
- Perform two- and three-way diffs and merges
- Easily navigate between differences and conflicts
- Visualise global and local differences with insertions, changes and conflicts marked
- Use the built-in regex text filtering to ignore uninteresting differences
- Syntax highlighting
Directory comparison
- Compare two or three directories file-by-file, showing new, missing, and altered files
- Directly open file comparisons of any conflicting or differing files
- Filter out files or directories to avoid seeing spurious differences
- Simple file management is also available
Version control
- Meld supports many version control systems, including Git, Mercurial, Bazaar and SVN
- Launch file comparisons to check what changes were made, before you commit
- View file versioning statuses
- Simple version control actions are also available (i.e., commit/update/add/remove/delete files)
Merge mode (in development)
- Automatically merge two files using a common ancestor
- Mark and display the base version of all conflicting changes in the middle pane
- Visualise and merge independent modifications of the same file
- Lock down read-only merge bases to avoid mistakes
- Command line interface for easy integration with existing tools, including git mergetool