In praise of Beyond Compare

Jeff Atwood

29 Nov 2005 — 1 min read — Comments

It’s a shame that Beyond Compare isn’t listed in more “favorite tool” lists. This amazing little folder and file differencing tool has earned its spot in my core toolset a dozen times over. Here’s a screenshot of it in action:

I’ve mentioned Beyond Compare before, but even a year later, few developers seem to know about it. If you haven’t tried it yet, what are you waiting for? Are you writing your own diff program in c#? Give it a 30-day trial spin, and check out the viewer plugins, too.

Here are a few beginner tips when using Beyond Compare:

Make use of the ultra-handy right-click explorer file and folder context menus to compare stuff.
The default comparison is file size plus date and time, which is super speedy but not always accurate. Use the little scales icon (or the Session | Comparison Control menu) to switch the comparison type to Size and CRC.
When viewing a file comparison, use the referee icon (or the Tools | Edit Current Rules menu) to tweak the file comparison rules. I usually turn off all the options under “Unimportant Text” such as leading whitespace, case, line endings, etcetera.

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