Beyond Compare vs. Review Board

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.

Incentivized

• Folder diffing. It allows you to see differences in deeply nested folder structures.
• File diffing. It allows you to see differences in files no matter their complexity.
• Diffing rules. It allows you to set rules to include/exclude files, folders and lines from your comparison.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• It's made it quick and easy to compare and synchronize directories when restoring a backup or copying code from one environment to another one.
• There are times when it would be a painstaking task to manually compare or sync two different directories, but BeyondCompare made it a trivial task.

Incentivized