Beyond Compare 3.0 – Comparing between two locations

Beyond Compare just recently hit version 3.0 and I had used it at the office countless times to take my local work up to the file server or web server at the click of a button. It saves profiles and on refresh, it would show you in a different color which file was newer. Beyond Compare does interface the Windows operating system by allowing you to right click on one file and setting it up to be compared to another file. I use this feature a ton to see which index.php file is the most updated one or to see the differences in the code. Yep… it’ll open up the files and you can actually see via it’s built in editor the actual code differences. Not to mention it’s new 3-way merge functionality – I love this feature.

But the interface to it can sometimes get in the way – it’s deceptively easy to actually move a file across between locations instead of copy and that means it’s a one way transfer. And it’s FTP functionality leaves a lot to be desired. SFTP was hit or miss for me in most cases.

Beyond Compare has two editions, Standard and Pro. The Standard Edition is a powerful, full-featured comparison tool costs $30 a license. The Pro Edition includes all the Standard features plus additional advanced features costs $50 a license.