Beyond Compare vs cwdiff

Beyond Compare compares folders, text files, images, and tables so users can inspect differences and merge changes. Folder comparisons can include recursive subfolders and filters based on modified time, size, filename case, or file content. Text tools provide syntax highlighting, inline editing, and options to ignore whitespace or comments; Pro adds two-way and three-way text merge. Other supported data includes CSV, tab-delimited files, HTML tables, Excel worksheets, binary files, images, and audio tag data. Folder Sync can reconcile data with disks, FTP servers, and zip files, and command-line scripts can run scheduled syncs. Pro also includes secure FTP connections, remote Subversion repositories, and cloud storage options such as WebDAV, Amazon S3, Dropbox, and OneDrive. It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows. The license is a one-time purchase, with Standard Edition at $35, paid once per user and Pro Edition at $70, paid once per user. Free evaluation is available, but continued use requires a license.

cwdiff is a free Linux command-line wrapper for wdiff. It adds directory comparison support and colorizes differences in the output. The README describes configuring it as a Mercurial extdiff command, then running comparisons with hg wdiff. Users can disable colors by adding --no-color to the wdiff options. The project is presented as a shell-language repository. Listed acquisition options include a tarball, MacPorts, Arch Linux AUR, NetBSD, and Gentoo packages. A NetBSD package page provides a NetBSD 10.0 binary for cwdiff 0.4.0 and lists no runtime dependencies. Documentation is hosted on junghans.github.io, and bug reports go to GitHub Issues. The associated maintainer account identifies Christoph Junghans, whose profile lists Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA. The NetBSD package page lists GNU GPL version 2. The plan is free.