Beyond Compare from Scooter Software headquartered in Madison is a utility for comparing different version of documents and seeing the differences. It also allows changes to be merged and synchronized.
Beyond Compare is extremely good at the task of comparisons, whether that is text file comparisons or folder comparisons. It does a great job of easily highlighting the differences for users, and giving them the option of merging (in the case of text files) or synchronizing (in the case of folders.) In either case, no one on my team has ever had any reason to reach for another different tool.
Gemini is well suited to help track issues and change requests, projects, bugs, time logs, etc. It is less appropriate for reporting needs or general office management needs.
File De-Duplication - Gemini does a great job of finding files that are bit-for-bit identical to each other. Typically these are caused by user replication, and Gemini sniffs them out and displays them for easy user decisions.
Similar Photo identification - Got a lot of similar photos, but not the exact same one? That's ok, this is a huge source of wasted space, and Gemini can deal with these too. If you're a "spray and pray" type of photographer, Gemini will help you clean up near-duplicate photos, helping you keep only the best.
Fast File Triage - Once Gemini has identified all these duplicates, what do you do with them? Gemini helps you triage the list of duplicates and easily decide which copies to keep. This is handy if you want to keep all files in the X folder, but not in the Y folder.
For date formatting discrepancies the software does not automatically mark the dates as equivalent; for instance ‘2019/10/15’ vs. ‘15-OCT-2019’. This would be considered a difference.
The columns/report must be ordered similarly. If extra data is available in one file, it should be removed or extra rows will be marked as differences.
For spreadsheet comparison, the user must save the file on the proper tab and then “recompare” within the tool. There is no way to switch between sheets in the software.
Sometimes when I search for an Ad Group, duplicates appear. But when I go into the Campaign and look for the Ad Group, there is only one.
The line in which it says which Campaign and then Ad Group you are in should be frozen so that it would easier to select the Campaign to go back & then into a different Ad Group.
You can't search for a keyword by its affiliate id. That is extremely frustrating. When I search for a keyword by its name, it brings up all keywords with that name, no matter what match type it has.
Gemini's development team continues to improve the product and provides a comprehensive roadmap of upcoming features that makes you want to upgrade as soon as a new version comes out.
Again, given the intuitive nature of this program, there is barely any learning curve needed. It is simple, reliable, accurate, and just one of those tools you always have with you and rarely think about until you don't have it. Then it is a case of OMG what was I thinking? This program is just very easy to use, and that makes it more valuable to me than some of my other software tools that cost significantly more.
I have never needed support for this product other than learning how to use a new feature I was not familiar with. User forums and user groups that have used this product for their own purposes have always sufficed for anything that I needed help using with the product. Some of the features could be a little better outlined, but overall very easy to use.
I've never had any problems with the support for the Gemini application itself, but it seems every time I re-install (on a single machine), I run into a licensing issue. As a result, I need to go to the app's website and request that my activation key gets reset or resent. In either case, it's a pain, but as I have to reinstall infrequently, it's a small price to pay for an otherwise solid application.
We've tried many: Code Compare, Meld, UltraCompare, and WinMerge. None of them have the depth of features and speed to handle the work we throw at Beyond Compare. The multi-tabbed interface allows us to sync multiple servers at the same time. It understands multiple file types, metadata, and encodings. It's the best tool for the job.
I have also used Google Adwords Editor - 4 stars and Bing Editor - 2 stars. The fact that it's so easy to edit a bid in Gemini is a big deal. And the toggle switch that changes a keyword or ad group from active to paused is extremely useful and easier to use than the drop down menus that Google Adwords Editor and Bing Editor use.
