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12 May 2014 Best visual diff tool on OS X Kaleidoscope, git, diff, FileMerge, opendiff, p4merge, and p4. If you know one please tell me. For the last couple of months I was trying various options for doing diffing and merging on Mac with git and perforce. Perforce itself has pretty good merging tool p4merge and people already know how to setup it with git. This is an aggregation of the answers posted on SO's deleted clone, Graphical diff for Mac OS X. It includes links to each product, and the current price since last edit in USD. It includes links to each product, and the current price since last edit in USD.
Converters: now you can use Compare It! To compare non-text files - if you can find a tool to convert your file format to text. Several ready to use converters you can find here Moved Sections: Compare It! Can detect and visualize moved sections, similar to what well-known WinDiff does. One of the few diff tools that works with more than just text and image files, Araxis Merge lets you also compare office documents (like MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, or ODF). For people working on both Windows and Mac, it's great to know that a single license is valid for both platforms. ExamDiff is a freeware Windows tool to visually compare text files. It offers a quick, intuitive, and powerful way to keep your files in sync.
Meld
Being free and open source, Meld is a very popular tool on Windows. 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 Mac 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 lets you also compare office documents (like MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, or ODF). For people working on both Windows and Mac, it's good to know that a single license is valid for both platforms.
KDiff3
Binary File Diff Tool
Another free and open source tool answers to the name of KDiff3. The project hasn't see many updates in recent years, 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.
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.
Code Compare
Besides offering all the standard diff and merge capabilities, Code Compare comes with some special features like syntax highligthing 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.
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.
![Binary file diff tool Binary file diff tool](https://www.git-tower.com/blog/content/posts/55-diff-tools-mac/tower-diff-view.png)
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:
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Win Diff
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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Examdiff
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