Beyond Compare Features List Comparison

Feature BC4 BC3 BC2
Feature BC4 BC3 BC2

General Features
Responsive, multithreaded interface yes yes yes
Tabbed interface yes yes no
Integrated shell extension yes yes no
Save comparisons as sessions to easily load them later yes yes yes
Automatically save sessions when closing them yes yes no
Save workspaces containing all open windows and sessions yes yes no
Home view with easy access to viewers and saved sessions yes yes no
View Unix patch files as a side-by-side comparison yes no no
Standalone text editor yes yes no
Script processor for automating tasks yes yes yes
Command line interface yes yes yes
Supports high DPI (retina) displays yes no no
Automatic check for updates yes yes no
Drag & drop to start comparisons yes yes yes
Customizable fonts, colors, and keyboard shortcuts yes yes yes
Extensive context-sensitive help yes yes yes
Dedicated support staff available via email, phone, and forums yes yes yes

Compare Files
Side-by-side display yes yes yes
Color highlighting of differences within lines yes yes yes
Display filters to show only differences yes yes yes
Jump to next/previous difference within file or folder yes yes yes
Printed and HTML comparison reports yes yes yes
Unicode and MBCS support yes yes no
Thumbnail overview of comparison yes yes yes
Can convert files before comparing them yes yes yes
Compare files or clipboard contents yes yes yes
Automatic backups when saving yes yes yes

Text Compare
Inline editing with dynamic recomparison yes yes no
Syntax highlighting yes yes no
Ignore unimportant differences
        Comments yes yes yes
        Whitespace yes yes yes
        Delimited strings yes yes yes
        Regular expressions yes yes yes
        Character case yes yes yes
        Page headers yes yes yes
        Columns yes yes yes
        Line terminator style yes yes yes
        Manually Ignore selection yes yes no
        Ignore replaced text and renamed identifiers  Pro only yes yes no
Flexible alignment
        Aligns similar lines yes yes yes
        Multiple alignment styles yes yes yes
        Optionally suppress alignment of differences yes yes yes
        Manually align changes or break alignments yes yes yes
Two- and three-way merge with output panel  Pro only
        Merges changes automatically yes yes no
        Marks conflicting sections yes yes no
        Take whole difference sections or selections yes yes no
Find & replace yes yes yes
Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, and Rich Text converted to text automatically yes yes yes
Adaptive gutter buttons for copying sections yes yes no
Formatted HTML view yes yes no
View Delphi binary form files as text yes yes yes
Line details as text, hex, or with character alignment yes yes no
Compare files with different formats yes yes yes
Bookmarks yes yes yes

Table Compare
Grid view yes yes yes
Compare CSV, tab delimited, HTML tables, and Excel worksheets yes yes yes
Ignore differences within numeric or date tolerances yes yes yes
Ignore or hide unimportant columns yes yes yes
Align based on key columns or all columns yes yes yes
Rearrange columns to compare files in different orders yes yes yes
Sort data before comparing yes yes yes

Binary Compare
Display binary files as hex yes yes yes
Inline editing with dynamic recomparison yes no no
Fast byte-by-byte alignment yes yes yes
Limit display to differences yes yes yes
Wrap lines to display yes no no
Find & Replace yes yes no

Registry Compare  Pro only Windows logo
Local and remote registry hives yes yes no
Registry exports (.reg) yes yes no
Inline editing yes yes no
Recursively expand keys in-place yes yes no

Picture Compare
Many picture formats yes yes yes
Flip, rotate, and scale images yes yes yes
Multiple comparison types yes yes yes
Thumbnail of pixels around the mouse cursor yes no no
Ignore differences within an RGB tolerance yes yes yes
Ignore replaced colors yes no no
Zoom to show entire image automatically yes no no

Other Comparisons
Compare .exe version information  Windows logo yes yes yes
Compare MP3 tags yes yes yes
Can use third-party comparison utilities for unsupported files yes no no

Compare Folders
Compare folders side-by-side yes yes yes
Color highlighting of differences yes yes yes
Automatically compare subfolders and expand them in place yes yes yes
Display filters to show added, modified, or matching files and folders yes yes yes
Flexible comparison criteria
        Last modified time yes yes yes
        Size yes yes yes
        Filename case yes yes yes
        DOS attributes yes yes yes
        File content (CRC32, byte-byte-byte, file format specific, or exe/dll versions) yes yes yes
        Ignore selection yes yes no
Exclusion filters
        File and folder names yes yes yes
        Sizes yes yes yes
        Last modified times yes yes yes
        File content yes yes no
        DOS and Unix attributes yes yes yes
Dedicated synchronization commands yes yes yes
Powerful file operations
        Copy, Move, Delete, Rename, Change Attributes, Set Last Modified Time yes yes yes
        Multiple operations can run in the background yes yes no
        Pause running operations yes no no
Two- and three-way folder merge  Pro only
        Merge to a separate output location or overwrite one of the inputs yes no no
        Automatically merge text files yes no no
Ignore folder structure yes yes no
Printed and HTML comparison reports
        Link an HTML folder comparison report to individual file comparison reports yes no no
Optionally follow symbolic links and NTFS junction points yes yes no
Align filenames with different extensions yes no yes
Align filenames using wildcard masks (e.g., "Apples*" => "Bananas*")  Pro only yes yes no
Align filenames with different Unicode normalization forms (OS X vs Windows) yes no no
Copy NTFS ACLs and DOS short (8.3) filename aliases  Windows logo yes yes no

Virtual File System
Local and network drives yes yes yes
Remote SMB servers (\\server) yes yes yes
FTP servers
        Named profiles yes yes no
        Multiple simultaneous connections yes yes no
        Resume interrupted transfers yes yes no
Secure FTP servers (FTP over SSL and SSH SFTP)  Pro only
        Password, private key, keyboard interactive, or SSH agent authentication yes yes no
Cloud storage  Pro only
        WebDAV yes no no
        Amazon S3 yes no no
        Dropbox yes no no
Remote Subversion repositories  Pro only yes no no
Portable media devices (Android phones, MP3 players, cameras)  Windows logo yes no no

Archive Files
Compare and modify without extracting to a temporary location yes yes yes
Compare as a file or expand as a folder yes yes yes
Save filesystem snapshots without content yes yes yes

Version Control
Launch comparisons from all major version control systems yes yes yes
Checkin/checkout files via MSSCCI provider  Pro only Windows logo yes yes no
Compares Subversion repositories  Pro only yes no no