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BeyondCompare is a powerful tool that is widely used in software development organizations for code diffing and file comparison. Users …
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What is Beyond Compare?
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.
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What is Beyond Compare?
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.
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What is Beyond Compare?
Beyond Compare Technical Details
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
|---|---|
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
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.
Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 9.2.
The most common users of Beyond Compare are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
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BeyondCompare is a powerful tool that is widely used in software development organizations for code diffing and file comparison. Users rely on BeyondCompare to compare files and folders of any format, extension, or size quickly and easily. With its long-standing reputation and over 20 years of experience, it has become a trusted choice for developers.
BeyondCompare simplifies the process of locating misplaced files or documents and provides a side-by-side viewer/comparer that displays various conditions such as same, orphans, newer, missing, etc. This functionality is highly appreciated by users as it helps them identify differences and navigate directly to them.
The tool offers a wide range of choices, including information, location, duplicates, and newest. This versatility makes it suitable for various tasks such as comparing directories between development and production servers in web design and development projects. Additionally, users in web coding, data entry, and graphic design departments rely on BeyondCompare for comparing code, spreadsheets, and combining documents from multiple sources.
Furthermore, BeyondCompare serves as a reliable source code diff tool that eliminates manual work and reduces the risk of human error. It is often preferred over the default mergetool utility included with Git for handling difficult merges in the development team. The tool is also used for recursively comparing directory structures and merging differing files into a single file.
BeyondCompare's usefulness extends beyond software development. It is commonly employed for operational tasks like comparing various formats such as plain text, folders, and structured data. Users appreciate its ability to look at configurations, validate registry settings, determine differences between files of any type, troubleshoot web-based applications by comparing configuration files, compare SQL code and DDL, and perform data validation tasks.
Additionally, BeyondCompare offers the capability to compare image differences, making it a versatile tool for ensuring content and format consistency during code comparison or other scenarios where visual comparison is required.
Overall, BeyondCompare has established itself as an essential tool for developers and professionals in various disciplines, facilitating efficient file comparison and code review processes while minimizing errors and saving valuable time.
Folder diffing feature: Users have found the folder diffing feature in Beyond Compare to be extremely helpful, allowing them to easily see differences in deeply nested folder structures. Several reviewers specifically mentioned this as a standout feature of the software.
Flexible diffing rules: The flexibility of the diffing rules in Beyond Compare has been praised by users. They appreciate being able to set rules to include or exclude files, folders, and lines from their comparisons. This customization option has received positive feedback from multiple reviewers.
Quick and accurate identification of differences: Reviewers have mentioned that one of the strong points of Beyond Compare is its ability to quickly and accurately identify differences between files. This efficient comparison process has been appreciated by several users who value time-saving features in the software.
Syntax Highlighting Needs Improvement: Some users have expressed dissatisfaction with the syntax highlighting feature of the software, stating that it is basic and requires additional installation or customization. They mention that the lack of precision in rules, attributes, and names can be problematic.
Outdated User Interface: Several reviewers have mentioned their disappointment with the old-looking user interface of the software. They feel that a more modern interface would be preferred to enhance user experience.
Performance Issues with Large Files: Many users have reported that the software can be slow when comparing folders with many files or large file sizes. This has caused frustration for those working on projects involving extensive data analysis or development tasks.
Users have made several recommendations for Beyond Compare based on their experiences with the tool. The three most common recommendations are as follows:
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Many users recommend Beyond Compare for comparing and merging code, as well as validating code with earlier versions. They find it effective in identifying differences in code and believe it is worth the price.
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Another common recommendation is to use Beyond Compare for general file comparison needs. Users find it easy to learn and use, and they believe it surpasses other tools they have tried in terms of functionality.
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Users also suggest integrating Beyond Compare into version management tools and text editors. They find it beneficial in automating tasks and reducing manual work, making it a valuable tool for developers working with Microsoft Office tools.
Overall, users find Beyond Compare useful for a variety of comparison tasks, such as comparing files, folders, images, and plain text. They recommend trying out the free trial before purchasing and encourage comparing it against its competition to determine which tool best suits individual needs.
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Reviews
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October 03, 2019
Beyond Compare is a must-have tool for your toolbox.
We use Beyond Compare for many tasks:
- Deploy files to production.
- General purpose FTP and SCP clients.
- De-duplicate and merge files.
- Compare source code trees.
- Compare JPG and PNG images.
- It's the best FTP and SCP file transfer client we found. It's fast, rock-solid, and has never let us down.
- We can compare huge file trees quickly. The filtering (diffs, orphans, sort order) is extremely powerful. We can locate minor file differences quickly.
- Rule-based comparison helps by eliminating minor differences in JPG image headers, text file line endings, MP3 metadata, etc.
- The ability to install in portable mode is a key feature for IT support work.
- Mac, PC, and Linux versions are available.
- The native decoding of file metadata (MP3, image formats) is very powerful.
- The tabbed interface allows multiple operations to run simultaneously.
- I often need to exclude folders or files from the comparison. Currently, the fastest way is to right-click and then pick "exclude" from the context menu. Having the ability to multi-select folders and then exclude the group would be nice.
- Sometimes we need to verify MD5 and SHA256 fingerprints, and this would be a nice enhancement within the tool.
- I can't imagine running our business without it. It's like asking a carpenter his ROI on a hammer. We use this tool almost daily and would be handicapped without it. The cost is trivial compared to the benefit.
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.
January 12, 2019
Comparing files and folders at its best
We are using BeyondCompare in the software development organization for file comparison. Often we have to compare files quickly and easily. These files can be not only source code, but other kinds of files, like xml, xsl, xls, even binaries. We have tools that process binary files required by the business and sometimes we need to compare them to debug some production issues.
- Finds and shows the differences between files quickly and accurately
- Allows you to update either file(merge) when the difference is found, just by clicking on the arrows
- Folder comparison is one of the most useful features for software developers
- The integration with the mouse right click menu is extremely helpful
- The User Interface could use a big uplift. It is old looking, people will prefer something more modern.
- A little slow when comparing folders that have many files or large file sizes
- Sometimes when the differences between files are caused by moving text, it is difficult for the tool to identify that, and it is a pain for the user to merge the files.
- As in most comparison tools, the alignment can cause some issues, by showing too many differences between files which are caused by the alignment.
- Decreased the time spent by software developers in finding issues with the wrong files checked in the file versioning tool
- Issues occurring in the production deployed applications are solved faster
- The source code branching has been made easier by having this tool to compare between them
- Notepad++
We had used many tools before buying Beyond Compare. The reason is that it has proven to be the best tool available for files and folder comparison and merging changes; it is quick and easy to use, supports almost all formats and it had a fast adoption by the software team.
November 28, 2017
BeyondCompare is Beyond Compare
In our department of web coders, data entry and graphic design, we use it for everything from comparing code to massive spreadsheets. We can compare almost any file types and entire folders of files. We we receive documents from multiple sources we can easily combine them using BeyondCompare saving us countless hours or going line by line. The highlighted areas of the display make is simple to see where the differences are and move directly to them.
- Being able to switch between seeing the entire document to just seeing the differences is very helpful when dealing with large amounts of copy. The ability to set the grammatical elements to compare also saves time and effort.
- Sessions are great and can be sued to save and reuse an important compare you've done and retain the settings and rules you applied.
- Accessing documents from the right-click menu is invaluable, quick launch of the program with your files loaded and ready to compare.
- BC has a large number of file formats you can compare and the ability to change document formats or create your own is a plus.
- Every once in a while there are serious alignment issues in BeyondCompare and it is hard to see exactly where everything lines up but you can choose the "align to" to compare important differences as blocks of added and deleted text rather than changed text.
- It is difficult to select and or move blocks of copy when BC breaks them up into sections that are not the same on both the right and left sides. You usually have to manually select the row or rows you want to move.
- Sometimes when a file is changed outside of Beyond Compare it does not update or recognize it and overwrites or eliminates any changes made. This may be a PC memory issue but I am not sure as it does happen occasionally.
- We can quickly and easily compare files and folders on our local as well as networked drives.
- Some of our web services are on Amazon S3, BeyondCompare can also work in these directories to help us sync them up.
- We do not have any versioning applications employed at this time so BC is a vital tool to help us keep our files and folders up to date.
- kdif and winmerge
These are free and opensource applications. They do not have most of the features that BeyondCompare has. Even though they are free to use, the reasonable cost of BeyondCompare makes using it over these competitors a no brainer.