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Comparing files and folders at its best
January 12, 2019

Comparing files and folders at its best

Cristian Bodnarasec | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with BeyondCompare

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.
This tool is easy to install and integrates well with Windows and the mouse right click. It also supports comparing files from local disk to an external FTP site for example, or with files residing on the local network.
This tool is very easy to use. Its integration with Windows and the mouse right click menu makes it spectacular. Just select the files to compare and in 2 clicks you are there. The way differences are shown and the merge capabilities are great as well. The User Interface needs improvement to increase the user experience, but the usability is one of the best.
BeyondCompare is the best file comparison tool we have used in our experience. It can compare any text format and even binaries. The folder comparison is a huge feature that helps a lot the software developers to debug/find issues in the code. BeyondCompare has proved to be much better also than the in-built file comparison from the file versioning tools we have used: VSS, SVN, SourceTree(Git).