KDiff3
KDiff3 is a file and directory diff and merge tool.
What is KDiff3?
KDiff3 is a file and directory diff and merge tool which
- compares and merges two or three text input files or directories,
- shows the differences line by line and character by character(!),
- provides an automatic merge-facility,
- has an editor for comfortable solving of merge-conflicts,
- provides network transparency via KIO,
- has options to highlight or hide changes in white-space or comments,
- supports Unicode, UTF-8 and other file encodings,
- prints differences,
- supports version control keyword and history merging.
History
KDiff3 was originally authored and maintained by Joachim Eibl through 2014. Then in 2018, it was ported to KF5/Qt5 by Michael Reeves, and actively maintained since.
Website: https://invent.kde.org/sdk/kdiff3 Documentation: https://docs.kde.org/stable5/en/kdiff3/kdiff3/ Binary downloads (Linux/Win/Mac): https://download.kde.org/stable/kdiff3/
KDiff3 Screenshots
Comments and Reviews
Tags
- Diff Tool
- Version Control
- hex-viewer
- merging
Recent user activities on KDiff3
- boogaloocasliked KDiff3bo
OrdinaryPersonadded KDiff3 as alternative(s) to TextDiff UWP
sr00added KDiff3 as alternative(s) to Difftastic
I was really happy to discover that KDiff3 was resurrected in 2018 after being unmaintained since 2014. While my favorite recursive dir/file comparison tool is WinMerge, that is Windows only.
KDiff3 was the next best option for Linux/Mac. It works quite well for comparing recursive dirs/files for large backups. You can do a quick compare (size only) or a full binary compare.
Simple and effective, if a bit outdated visually.
Official Website is for Linux installer only ...
https://kde.org/applications/development/org.kde.kdiff3
... not a hint of Windows anywhere.
Latest Linux appears to be v1.8 (Feb-2020)
https://cgit.kde.org/kdiff3.git
Windows version is older v0.9.98 (2014-07-04) on http://kdiff3.sourceforge.net/
_Softpedia have Windows version too https://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Text-editors/KDiff3.shtml_
Those are all outdated links. You can get the URL for Linux/Win/Mac binary downloads from the README https://invent.kde.org/sdk/kdiff3
Reply written ago
[https://invent.kde.org/sdk/kdiff3 Readme Quote]: Binaries can be downloaded at https://download.kde.org/stable/kdiff3/?C=M;O=D
Reply written ago
Much faster than Meld on Windows, good for working with SVN
I have two CSV files that only differ in the date format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS vs. M/D/YYYY HH:MM.
KDiff3 takes 25 seconds to compare these files and freezes. Bug filed at https://sourceforge.net/p/kdiff3/bugs/217/.
At least the authors of Kdiff don't go around spamming review sites with their shilling.
Reply written ago
Developer last update (2014) ... v0.9.98 (2014-07-04) ... at ... http://kdiff3.sourceforge.net/
AlternativeTo app page (2017) ... latest update was made in Feb 2017 ... ?
Developer's update (2014) is well after Kissaki's comment below , so there is a possibility kfiff3 is fixed
I would like to know if Kissaki's concerns have been addressed by the developer?
This is my first venture into text comparison, so I am a bit nervous at the reliability of kdiff3
I was very enthusiastic about finally having found a merge tool where I could make out which changes came in from two sides against a base version when merging. Being able to see 3 columns of base file, remote and local changes, and the resulting file is very nice. Unfortunately, I had to notice the auto-resolving of conflicts produces wrong results. I can thus not use it in this state for solving merge conflicts sadly.