Diff tools on Mac OS X - an overview

As a Kaleidoscope user, I must say I am mostly unimpressed. While beautiful, you cannot edit a file in place while merging. Because of this fatal flaw, I find the program significantly less useful.

Further, I cannot remove a file from the diff or 'checkout --' the file, which is common for my workflow.

work -> X local commits to track progress -> diff with master -> cleanup into Y logical commits -> diff with master

Correct me if I am wrong, or if my flow seems weird.

Really looked forward to this, but super disappointed by the inconclusive conclusion.

    "Diff & merge apps are amongst the most underestimated 
    tools. But a good one can be really helpful in a lot of 
    situations. Try one of the above and see for yourself!"

People like to read these articles to save time. After spending time with all of them, if there was one that was the best overall, say so. If it was a tie between two, say so. If the best one was paid, but a free one was also excellent and therefore a better value, say so. But don't cop out of giving a comparative review at the end.

I really like Kaleidoscope and have been using it for quite some time now, since it first launched on the MAS. It's a very pricey but I think it's worth it. It's a great program, looks good, makes git diffs really easy and launches in a second on my Mac. It also provides integration with services like git so you can just do git difftool and have Kaleidoscope launch with the diff between the local and remote. For big hairy merges, this is a lifesaver!

I also use vimdiff sometimes and it's pretty great as well, with the advantage of editing a file inside vim.

While the UI is a Windows-style mess, nothing beats Beyond Compare. It's far and away the most useful tool I have outside of the IDE (particularly since we use Perforce). I pine for a Mac port, even if they did nothing to clean it up visually.

I've been using Meld [1] via XQuartz. It's not pretty (and getting it working is an absolute pain) but goddamn does it get the job done. Nothing I've tried is nearly as functional. And it's open source!

[1] http://meldmerge.org/

While it isn't pretty KDiff3 is still a decent diff program. I've mainly only used it when I have to do merges between 2 versions of a project.

I used Araxis Merge at a previous job for a bit and really like it. But back then (2005?) their shortcut keys on Windows were atrocious and could not be customized.

Anyone know of a of an XML aware merge app for OS X? Something akin to Project Merge?