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Beyond Compare

Beyond Compare

Overview

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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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

BeyondCompare is a powerful tool that is widely used in software development organizations for code diffing and file comparison. Users …
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Beyond Compare

10 out of 10
January 18, 2020
Incentivized
As far as I know, Beyond Compare is used in the Engineering Department. It makes our life easier to compare multiple files or directories. …
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Beyond Compare Review

9 out of 10
October 04, 2019
Incentivized
This product is mainly used by a select number of people at my company, those that have a specific need to look at configurations for …
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Gets the job done

8 out of 10
October 04, 2019
Incentivized
We use it to compare files and make sure they match exactly in terms of content and format. This allows us to be confident when we make a …
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Pricing

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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.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Product Demos

AsGoodAsLove- "Beyond Compare" (demo)/c.5.2018.APG

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VirtZine #54 - "Beyond Compare Software Demo and Cloud Backup"

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BEYOND COMPARE (MEGATON)

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Product Details

What is Beyond Compare?

Beyond Compare Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

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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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(48)

Community Insights

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!

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:

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-19 of 19)
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Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • A positive impact is the very quick result set for files that are configured in the same manner (just select the files and get your results).
  • A positive is this software is not licensed based.
  • A negative is the overhead of editing fields such as dates to be equivalent.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • 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.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Beyond Compare easily accelerates development, especially when compared with not using a different tool. It reduces the amount of time developers spend hunting for minute differences in files. This is a huge benefit in saving developer time.
  • Beyond Compare also accelerates installer development by having folder comparisons, where you can understand if any files or folders are different between two directory structures. This makes it very easy to identify gaps in installer development.
  • Finally, Beyond Compare's folder synchronization functionality helps keep an occasional working copy backup in sync with a remote backup by enabling a quick folder sync between the local and remote copy. This simplifies the backup process and eliminates risk by having multiple redundant copies.
Richard Davies | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
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.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • ROI ($): I can't put a dollar value on this, but the amount of time invested in troubleshooting computer software/infrastructure issues -- which simply means how much is it costing per hour for a person to do that job (which means labor costs) has been absolutely HUGE. For example, pouring through a web.config file on one web server and trying to compare it with one from another server using Notebook or Notebook++ can be very time consuming (not to mention frustrating and energy draining), but with BeyondCompare, the time it takes to spot such differences is reduced to a couple of minutes -- and most of that is finding the two or more files to compare.
  • Reduced troubleshooting time: troubleshooting complex web-based applications in a Windows environment across multiple infrastructures can be a real nightmare. BeyondCompare has made that aspect of my work significantly less painful and quicker to do. See the example above.
Mathieu Gaouette | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • The great benefit of this software is immediate as it allows users to spend a fraction of the time they used to for source code compare. The compare is quicker and exact (no human looking at files or comparing files one by one with possibility of missing one).
  • In this case, if the person validating differences between files and folders is not using a compare software, the time saved will probably be around 80% minimum.
  • Used by change management groups, this can also raise the security of the changes as the person promoting the change can validate in details what modification a specific change brings to a production application.
Cristian Bodnarasec | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • 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
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • This is likely the biggest bang-for-the-buck software I've purchased. Saves me countless hours for under $100
  • As stated, we use this enough now to justify an Enterprise license.
  • For programmers, DBAs, and probably Accounting professionals, this does a great job of telling you what text is missing.
Ralph Vanore | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • 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.
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