Someone reviewed v on Jul 5, 2022

Pros: 555

Cons: 555

Bottom Line: 555

YStevaert reviewed v2.13.20 Alpha on Aug 28, 2011

Abandoned in a horribly bad, unreliable state.

RitoSwan reviewed v2.13.20 Alpha on Oct 21, 2010

This tool seriously contains CRC checksum methods for folder comparison.
Using the bit-for-bit comparison it takes ages.

reddy.shyam reviewed v2.13.14 Experimental on Sep 17, 2010

Development has almost come to a standstill but I guess nothing new can be added. Serves my purpose.

anomoly reviewed v2.13.11 Experimental on Feb 4, 2010

As a very nice alternative try Diffuse from sourceforge (python).
http://diffuse.sourceforge.net/
It works with files only & is very simple to use.
Excuse the horodruin ref. It is a folder type sync ap for which I would probably use over this. Not a fan of the gui here.

rip_pit reviewed v2.13.8 Experimental on May 26, 2009

using it for a long time. Never had errors while comparing, and perfs are good even with big folders (under xp). Maybe you should not use "Experimental" or "Nightly builds" and stay with stable releases

GerritWittesaele reviewed v2.13.6 Experimental on Apr 16, 2009

Comparison is not trustable.

Sometimes it does not detect file differences while they are there.
So, what's left for this tool ?

anomoly reviewed v2.13.4 Experimental on Mar 18, 2009

I tested this with 2 different folders that I wanted to be the same and it seemed to take foreeeeever. In comparison, I tried Horodruin and it was ten times faster.

DudeBoyz reviewed v2.13.2 Experimental on Jan 28, 2009

I really want to like this program. But I'm struggling with the interface and the number of colors used by default in order to get the point across.

It's like a good book with a bad cover, you know?

Still. Open Source. Great move. I'd surely give it a solid 3.5 if we could, but I don't feel comfortable giving it a full 4.0.

I'm glad it's out there, but at the same time, I hope contributors to the project will be able to focus on some usability issues related to the interface and color scheme. Interface design can be a daunting task. I hope they can get it right.

Andy Dean reviewed v2.13.1 Experimental on Jan 15, 2009

I can't praise this app highly enough.
Works straight out of the box and does exactly what it is supposed to.
I use it on a regular basis.

Kevin_S reviewed v2.11.1.8 Experimental on Dec 19, 2008

I was a Beyond Compare user prior to discovering this tool. Even though my company had purchased a copy of Beyond Compare for me, I uninstalled it and began using WinMerge. I love it and use it every day. Well done!

bigmama reviewed v2.11.1.7 Experimental on Nov 21, 2008

i use both winmerge and araxis. Are great!

EarlyMorningHours reviewed v2.11.1.6 Experimental on Oct 23, 2008

I've been using this program continually for the last year after having used ExamDiff Pro for a few years prior. WinMerge has been just as reliable and actually preferable in some regard for me. I can't say that I use it in every conceivable fashion, but for directory comparison, and file content comparison, it has been indispensable.

Cornelis reviewed v2.11.1.5 Experimental on Oct 6, 2008

I just don't get it, what version is current 2.11.x or 2.9.x ???? DOH.

cricri_pingouin reviewed v2.11.1.5 Experimental on Oct 3, 2008

Many people suggest Beyond Compare. I tried it, and it works great indeed. However, for my needs, WinMerge does everything I require, well, and for free (unlike Beyond Compare). Thus, I dont' know about others, but WinMerge gets me into its user base.
Add to that a constant flow of updates and unicode support, and you'll understand why I give it a 5 without a second thought.

Ulmo reviewed v2.11.1.4 Experimental on Aug 21, 2008

Using at work every day in full UTF-8 environment.
No problem at all, when well configured.
Araxis Merge is gone for me, too slow...

SandraDuboix reviewed v2.11.1.2 Experimental on Jul 25, 2008

It still crashes on bigger files, I still prefer FolderMatch which isn't free but 1000 times better.

DudeBoyz reviewed v2.11.1.2 Experimental on Jul 24, 2008

Neutral score of 3 until I test it out in detail, then I'll update the score.

But I wanted to ask - is this sort of like a directory comparison / sync program too? Sort of like the one built into Free Commander 2008?

Or is this mainly about merging textual content?

Thanks

1bigguy reviewed v2.11.1.1 Experimental on Jul 13, 2008

Been using this app for years and love it. I recommend it to everyone on my site.

bigmama reviewed v2.11.1.1 Experimental on Jul 11, 2008

I have both kdiff3 and Winmerge

each has its + and -

--------
I would like a better unicode implementation
3 file panels in winmerge

rhinohide reviewed v2.9.9.1 Experimental on Jun 17, 2008

V2.7.6 Although certainly not a full evaluation, my first use of this saved me a half-hour of tedious file compares. It took me all of 8 seconds to find the appropriate Help topic and open the 2 folders for compare. Nice comparison icons. (Missing right, missing left icons) Very clear, I've used others that were much more obscure.
NOTE to BetaNews - You should always have a link to "the stable release version" when you list a beta version. I use your site all the time, keep up the very good work.
This is a MUST HAVE utility for anyone trying to manage digital photo libraries.

brusco reviewed v2.9.9.1 Experimental on Apr 24, 2008

Compares perfectly although it only has 2 panes as opposed to KDiff's 3 panes. (KDiff is open source and available for windows, linux and Mac, http://kdiff3.sourceforge.net/ )

mharvey reviewed v2.9.9.1 Experimental on Apr 23, 2008

Still one of my favorite and most used tools for firmware development. There may be other compare/merge tools that have some more advanced features (3 way merge, etc) but WinMerge is the best balance between form and function for me.

darthbeads reviewed v2.8 on Apr 4, 2008

Absolutely fantastic app. I've never had a problem with it comparing directories or documents. Truly a 5-star program.

Joco reviewed v2.8 on Apr 4, 2008

Excellent utility. Real life saving tools in my dev toolbox.

kmrdeva reviewed v2.8 on Apr 3, 2008

jafo818, I can see 2.8.0 under the Stable Versions section here..

http://sourceforge.net/p...16&package_id=11248

jafo818 reviewed v2.8 on Apr 3, 2008

Is this a release build? It's not showing up on the winmerge.org downloads page.

cricri_pingouin reviewed v2.8 RC on Mar 4, 2008

I actually prefer this one over Beyond Compare, 5 from me.

De Julien reviewed v2.7.7.5 Experimental on Feb 23, 2008

Quite contrary to shareware which shines at adding useless crap untill eternity, freeware shines because it actually gets better and better.

Darken reviewed v2.7.7.5 Experimental on Feb 22, 2008

Excellent tool.

@Onsoku: Work fine under Windows Vista without any problem.

Onsoku reviewed v2.7.7.4 Experimental on Feb 8, 2008

Great software; but when can we expect Vista support?

EarlyMorningHours reviewed v2.7.7.2 Experimental on Jan 14, 2008

Sometimes I wonder how I ever lived without this. I use this in many different ways - comparing directories, individual files, with TortoiseSVN, and probably a few others I can't think of right now. Some of the commercial competitors are also quite nice and capable, but with this open source offering the choice is easy.

rocugbg reviewed v2.7.6 Beta on Dec 5, 2007

Works fine with Total Commander. Open WinMerge, drag files from Total Commander and drop them in WinMerge and it just works.

Ian C. reviewed v2.7.5.7 Experimental on Nov 20, 2007

Great piece of software, integrates very nicely with TortoiseSVN, makes finding mistakes really easy.

statm1 reviewed v2.7.5.5 Experimental on Nov 8, 2007

Yep this is one crucial piece of software. It makes updating phpbb styles 10 times easier than it is doing it by hand.

Diam0nd reviewed v2.7.5.3 Experimental on Sep 27, 2007

neat!

Andy Dean reviewed v2.7.5.2 Experimental on Sep 11, 2007

I use this on a regular basis for comparing my gaming servers configs. Hard to find any faults with what it does but feel it needs a few more options like the ability to print only changes plus a selected number of lines above and below those changes.

incisor reviewed v2.7.5.1 Experimental on Aug 17, 2007

excellent!

bigmama reviewed v2.7.4 Beta on Jun 28, 2007

I like it

bigmama reviewed v2.7.3.4 Experimental on May 16, 2007

i like it, i like it and i like it!!!

bigmama reviewed v2.7.3.3 Experimental on Apr 5, 2007

5 out of 5

bigmama reviewed v2.7.3.1 Experimental on Mar 21, 2007

does the job
great and free

HoIIywood__ reviewed v2.7.1.6 (Experimental) on Feb 3, 2007

Afaid I can only give this a 3*, whilst it's bonus is it's free, it';s sadly lacking in features and plain ugly compared to products like Beyond Compare.

brusco reviewed v2.7.1.5 (Experimental) on Jan 16, 2007

excellent

belthurgp reviewed v2.7.1.5 (Experimental) on Jan 12, 2007

the best...

all diff tools have their own flavors and not all of them will be useful for all different kind of activities.

I deal with a lot of source code merging and winmerge does the job. perfectly.

I am not sure what "constust" uses the "merge" feature, but I would think it's a very dangerous feature...I would never do a merge

constust reviewed v2.7.1.3 (Experimental) on Dec 5, 2006

still no merge button

biplab reviewed v2.7.1.2 (Experimental) on Nov 27, 2006

An excellent, open source app. Fits all shoes.

jafo818, it is also available in Sourceforge.net from the following link.
http://sourceforge.net/p...iles.php?group_id=13216

umbelino reviewed v2.7.1.1 (Experimental) on Nov 22, 2006

constust,

I think you should search better before say that...

constust reviewed v2.7.1.1 (Experimental) on Nov 17, 2006

Lacks a merge button next to differences. Something so obvious it's not there? Useless for me because of that. I'll stick to Compare It!

jafo818 reviewed v2.6.0 on Oct 13, 2006

Interesting that this isn't available at winmerge.org yet. BetaNews gets it before their own website? Wow...

Best program of it's kind... I tell everyone at work to drop Windiff (a joke compared to WinMerge)...

borreo reviewed v2.6.0 on Oct 12, 2006

Unbelievably good.

rip_pit reviewed v2.5.5.3 on Jul 14, 2006

No more trojan report from kaspersky with this one.
It was only due to the installer files or method.
This is a know behavior and and it is the same with all ohter softwares that use this installer.
Anyway it's always my prefered file comparer utility.

rip_pit reviewed v2.5.5.2 on Jul 4, 2006

Trojan.generic detected by kaspersky antivirus 6 during installation process ! I think it's a false positive alert, i've autorised it (even the kav website is unable to tell me what is a trojan.generic !)
Hope it's not a real virus coz this is my prefered compare tool.
To to the same on 3 files at a time, you can use:
kdiff3 (open source)

Darken reviewed v2.5.5.2 on Jul 3, 2006

Excellent freeware tool!

Ciolouse reviewed v2.5.5.1 on Jun 22, 2006

Version 2.4.x is Final Build.
Version 2.5.4 is Beta.
Version 2.5.5.1 is Experimental Builds.

2.6.x will be the next Final Build.

Anyway, this is a very usefull software !

war593122 reviewed v2.4.8 on Jun 14, 2006

Yeah because its a final release.

Ciolouse reviewed v2.5.4 on May 18, 2006

I don't know how I did before this ! :)

DJHasis reviewed v2.5.4 on May 18, 2006

Does what it needs to.

Don Juan reviewed v2.5.0.2 on Nov 25, 2005

Makes my life easier.

mharvey reviewed v2.5.0.1 (Experimental) on Nov 3, 2005

My favorite visual diff tool. I use it every day writing software. The perfect companion to Tortoise CVS. I could not live without them.

rocknroller reviewed v2.4.0 on Sep 30, 2005

the best, next thing they could do would be to have a side by side printing of files in diff or folders in diff

I agreee! This is the main reason why I can't completely switch to this tool.

thockam reviewed v2.4.0 on Sep 30, 2005

for free, this is about the best diff I have seen - I don't do binary compares - what's the point of that - I have been coding for 20+ years now and 99 out of 100 times I do source diffs or folder diffs - discarding an app because it does not do binary diffs is lacking...

the best, next thing they could do would be to have a side by side printing of files in diff or folders in diff

Defenestration reviewed v2.4 RC1 on Sep 21, 2005

Not bad, but lacks binary file compare.

Without this feature, you always need to have two diff tools installed if you want to use WinMerge.

Why bother when you can have one that does it all.

I would rate it as a 5 when binary file compare is added. Until then I give it a 3.5.

Crypton reviewed v2.3.6.0 Beta on Sep 7, 2005

Very nice program, btw link is broken,

Here is working link.

http://prdownloads.sourc....6.0-Setup.exe?download

opus51 reviewed v2.3.5.4 (Experimental) on Sep 1, 2005

woops wrong :-(

thockam reviewed v2.3.5.4 (Experimental) on Sep 1, 2005

download for 2.3.5.4 did not work.

get it here:
http://prdownloads.sourc....5.4-Setup.exe?download

thockam reviewed v2.3.5.3 (Experimental) on Aug 25, 2005

cool tool - used it for years
kdiff (http://kdiff3.sourceforge.net/) is another tool and the only free one I could find that diff'd 3 files at once, uses the diffutils gnu32 sourceforge command line tools...

t33r0y reviewed v2.3.5.2 (Experimental) on Aug 17, 2005

The best free file/directory comparator. I cannot get the link to the right to work but this one does (I hope).

http://prdownloads.sourc....5.2-Setup.exe?download

Crypton reviewed v2.3.1.6 Experimental on Mar 8, 2005

Great program, been using it for some time now, however the DL link here seems to not work for me, don't know if that is a issue with the net atm, or what, but if anyone else is having the same problem try this link.

http://sourceforge.net/p...6&release_id=311237

Braese reviewed v2.3.1.5 Experimental on Mar 2, 2005

it´s not Perfect, but near Perfect ;) the best Free Solution in this Category i´ve tested and not much behind Beyond Compare.

ernest33 reviewed v2.2 Release Candidate 1 on Oct 1, 2004

Very usefull program. Perfect with Tortoise !
It's not perfect yet....but i have time to wait :)

davidtb reviewed v2.1.7.14 Experimental on Sep 17, 2004

Tough room,avbhanda

avbhanda reviewed v2.1.7.14 Experimental on Sep 16, 2004

Though I have been visiting BetaNews for over 2yrs
this is my first review for any tool posted here

I felt the need to comment about WinMerge due to
the fact that its one of the tools which I
strongly recomment in my professional and personnal circles due to its strengths and
essentially being a freeware. Though the tool is
evolving many features, off late the beta
releases have been one too many and may have given a wrong impression about its strengths.

Considering that I found it quite unfair to compare this tool with the commercial tools which
have constent funding based on sales.

whitedeath reviewed v2.1.7.8 Experimental on Jul 1, 2004

No CVS integration. The Make Patch function doesn't work (give binary file on text files, and delete both source files!). Unintuitve UI

odunthorne reviewed v2.1.7.8 Experimental on Jul 1, 2004

Good for basic stuff, but Beyond Compare blows it out of the water. although you do have to pay for it, not much though. i suggest trying beyond compare.

ssb reviewed v2.1.7.7 Experimental on Jun 15, 2004

Great considering it's freeware. Not future rich as Beyond Compare or Examdiff Pro, but free and with an excellent editor.

skonrad reviewed v2.1.7.6 Experimental on Jun 10, 2004

Plain awesome, highly recommended.

Dirk van Hoofen reviewed v2.1.7.4 Experimental on May 24, 2004

Nice tool, great FREEWARE. Thanks a lot for it.

hnaess reviewed v2.1.6.0 Beta on Apr 2, 2004

Greate Diff/Merge tool that does anything expect and even some more. Great to diff and morge directory and files, and works also very good when diffing to files.

seier reviewed v2.1.5.16 Experimental on Mar 26, 2004

Please note the previous review is over a year old and that crash no longer exists. I work with ASP files all the time without crashes even on experimental builds.
Cheers,
Christian Blackburn

fatpanda reviewed v1.9.1.3 Beta on Mar 19, 2003

Tested two versions of a .asp file and it worked as supposed - and even had syntax color coding, very nice. Found a bug though: Moving all changes right and then press the undo button a couple of times to undo all changes crashed the application.