Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review Upsource is the best review tool we've found but it still has some flaws. Notably, it makes reviewing small and quick changes less convenient than they need to be, and diff viewing (especially collaboratively) can be tedious.
It does handle larger, iterative reviews well. Especially when using a feature branch, Upsource will track that branch and automatically add all commits to the review. You can then review the branch as a whole, or look at a subset of diffs.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review Automatically watch git repositories Track all commits in a branch in a single commit Integrates with build server to report build status of specific commits when looking at reviews/commits Integrates with JetBrains IDEs Ability for reviewers to add comments inline and require comments to be resolved before approval Built in diff viewer, both stacked and side-by-side Read full review Cons 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. Read full review Creating and closing reviews isn't as quick as it could be. You must create a review, assign reviewers, approve and close. I wish there would be a quick review-approve-close for a commit where the change is simple and doesn't require multiple review iterations. Web based interface can be clunky, especially when looking at big diffs side-by-side JetBrains IDE integration is somehow less convenient than going using it in browser. Read full review Usability 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.
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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.
Read full review Compared to the other tools we evaluated, Upsource was the only tool that allowed distinct reviews without needing explicit pull requests while still being able to go in-depth when required. The diff viewer is serviceable and better than the alternatives, as well, especially the side-by-side viewer.
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review Increased our code base quality Reduced the number of bugs found after deployment (bugs are found in review and fixed before deploy) Improved knowledge sharing Read full review ScreenShots