I want Beyond Compare 2 for Mac OS X
:: Thursday, November 23rd, 2006 @ 3:08:53 pm
:: Tags: Computers
Scooter Software’s Beyond Compare 2 is one of the best utility programs I’ve ever used. On a Windows XP machine, I rely on it almost daily to synchronize directory structures for backups and updates. Since all of my machines use the same directory structure, it is invaluable in helping me to shuttle files around to the machine I’m going to work (if I need the files locally).
There is one problem, however. I’m in the process of switching to the Mac, and there doesn’t seem to exist anything remotely similar in functionality.
I’ve used rsync and various GUI apps for it, but a blind sync is not what I’m looking for. I’m looking for an application that will allow me to navigate and sync parallel directory structures and let me update or mirror uni- or bi-directionally without having to navigate in both source and destination panes (like the UI used in many FTP apps).
When I get home from a trip, the first thing I do is connect my machine to the network and push my local directory structure to the main server. This is easily accomplished using rsync and blind backup apps, but those solutions have several problems. First, I don’t want to sync the entire structure. I know which directories have been changed, and I want to select specific folders to sync. Also, when I want to take specific files and directories with me on a certain machine, I pull them over selectively, and it only copies those files that are new or changed.
Richard Sipe details a way to use Beyond Compare from within a Parallels instance running Windows XP, but I want something that runs natively. Accessing files from within Windows isn’t a good solution for me.
The closest app I’ve found so far is zsCompare, which allows for parallel views of source and destination directories. However, it pales in comparison to Beyond Compare. So far, here are a few things I’ve noticed about zsCompare:
- no live browsing of parallel structures until a full compare is complete
- non-Mac interface
- bizarre installer
- no progress information when copying (% complete)
- interface locks up intermittently when copying
- copying takes up insane amounts of CPU and memory
- clunky feel, in general
- runs out of memory during large compares
Why doesn’t a similar app exist for the Mac? Any tips from expert readers out there?
UPDATE It looks like ChronoSync is a good sync app as well. Its “Analyze” feature has parallel browsing of directory structures. I’m giving it a try.
UPDATE Dammit. You can browse the parallel directory structure in ChronoSync, but you can’t copy/move back and forth from that screen. :(
Journal RSS 
For normal mac backup utilities, I’ve given up on Retrospect (works on Mac but is extremely clunky and slow) and have been trying SuperDuper, arRsync, and Synk. So far they all have problems. I may end up doing complete, scheduled drive backups using SuperDuper but I often prefer backing up specific folders instead.
Synk does this but currently fails (reports disk full) when backing up to Infrant ReadyNas boxes (what I use). On the Synk forums, product representatives blame Infrant and Apple even though other products don’t suffer from the same problem.
I hope the upcoming release of Synk fixes the problem. It seems like the best solution.
Yes. Every three months or so I turn to searching the web again for a Beyond Compare replacement. And every three months I find some other developer, in this case you, in a similar situation. ChronoSync and TextWrangler are what I use in the meantime, but both have serious limitations. Maybe a challenge is going to be needed now that the mydreamapp.com content is over. Something similar to this: notMac Challenge?
I just googled “beyond compare for OSX” because I have the exact same problem. Any job I get I force to buy it, I use it for code merging all the time and for comparison of local copies on development machines. Also for helping me to manage my mp3’s and data backups etc.
It just works, one of the few programs I would say I actually RELY on.
Hey Chad - I subscribed to this conversation in the off-chance that someone else would have come up w/ a good solution.
In the meantime, I installed Codeweaver’s crossover and Beyond Compare on my Intel mac and am happy to say it works great. The interface is a little clunky, but other than that it works just like you’d hope. Good luck, Ben
Have you checked out SmartSynchroniz?
It’s cross platform utilizing Java, youcan sync file contents and directories.
Cheng, what about running BC2 via CrossOver?
I just installed and seem to work fine, except for some denied entries it worked.
Just dont try to run on the full /Volumes / it hangs the machine…
I wonder if Scooter Software could be convinced to make a MacOSX version of Beyond Compare?
LDJ
How about this?
Araxis Merge? http://www.araxis.com/merge_mac/index.html
Does not seem as simple and straight forward, not as clean as Beyond Compare.
I also switched to OS X and would be happy to have Beyond Compare around…
Lloyd - the early-access test release of Araxis Merge for Mac doesn’t seem to support folders yet.
For those of you using BC2 in Windows virtual machines on the Mac: aren’t you afraid? I’d be afraid.
I want BC2 4 Mac too. I installed Darwine for OSX, and the X11 app from the Optional Packages thing on the OS X install disc. I was able to install Beyond Compare, register it, run it. But it started giving me an exception dialog…and it wouldn’t stop. So it was pretty busted for me, I may try again but :P .
I’ve had success with BC and Cross Over. It looks ugly as, but hey. The “bottle” has some windowing issues. If you bring a window to the front you actually have to select Cross Over from the dock to get it back (at least, that’s what I’ve found). Unfortunately FTP sync-ing does not seem to work.
Agree on Araxis. Too early yet and no folder comparison. The Developer Tool FileMerge is “ok” but I can’t really work out how to emulate the line by line merging you get in BC. zsCompare I’ve not tried but the screenies I’ve seen don’t look promising.
And yes, I’m on my three-monthly hunt for something new myself.
Think we are going to have to lobby Scooter themselves a bit more.
Scratch that, Araxis is fine. You compare folders by opening a new folder comparison. You can add the AraxisMergeCMP.plugin to get the context menus (you ‘Add to Queue’ on one folder, then ‘Compare’ on another).
It’s not ‘quite’ the same but certainly close. Major downside is the price (but comparable to Cross Over + BC), however, the trial period is free at the moment. You just renew the trial license every month.
Yet another here who is just doing his quarterly check for a Beyond Compare-like tool for Mac. A year of looking, and still no equivalent. A port from Scooter Software would be really nice.
I emailed Scooter Software, and the fellow there says right now they are concentrating on development for version 3, but after that they will consider doing an OS X port. If you politely email them with your request for the port, they may be more likely to do it.
Anyone try Match?
As an avid BC2 user who moved to the Mac I looked up “Folder Compare” in Version Tracker and came up with this:
http://www.bytewash.com/Bytewash/Match.html
Trying it out now. It’s not anywhere as feature-rich as BC2 but so far it seems to be suiting my needs. At $49 US though, it ain’t the cheapest utility out there.
Add me to the list of Mac switchers who dearly miss Beyond Compare. I’ve taken to running Parallels in a second display in full-screen mode, but really the only reason I do this is for Beyond Compare.
I’m off to the Scooter website to ask politely for a port. I would buy it in a heartbeat.
Me too. I have intellij which has a great compare program - only wish I could use it on directories external to a given project. Can import directories in a project but it is slow as IDEA tries to parse everything.
Loved BC2 and can’t understand why nothing similar on OS X exists.
Add me to the list of dev’s migrating from Windows to OS X struggling without my Beyond Compare. I have not found anything to date that matches it’s functionality.
I too have been a long-time fan of Beyond Compare and I’ve searched high and low for a suitable replacement. I came across DeltaWalker from Deltopia software and it seems like it might be a decent substitute for the better BC2.
Here’s a link for anyone interested: http://www.deltopia.com/products/products.html
I just downloaded and tried ChronoSync - it is truly impressive if what you’re interested in is to keep the same content on several drives (e.g., one external, two computers, for instance a home laptop and an office desktop or whatever). I’m writing my dissertation and I have to use different software on different computers for parts of the work (including some which are expensive and only licensed on university computers), so this is really perfect. 30 dollars doesn’t seem too much when you really care about data. It also has a safe copy option which makes sure that files will not be overwritten until the transfer is checked for errors. The interface is simple and obvious, and you can also automate it. I’ve never used Beyond Compare, but before I switched to the Mac I had Total Commander on Windows and this is a great app for doing the kind of things I just mentioned.
A few months later…
I think I tried most of them… at least 10 of these programs.
ChronoSync is maybe good for synchronizing drives, but does not show you which parts of a document are different and does not let you selectively merge files. I’m a programmer, and often I want to copy only certain changed lines, not all of them.
For the last weeks I have been using SmartSynchronize, and it’s the only one that does all I want. The only issue for me is maybe the speed. It’s ok for a few hundred files, but if I compare two drives with thousands of files it takes a while, I would say much more than BC2. The interface could be a bit better too. But it does the job.
Never heard of DeltaWalker. Will try that one, and probably buy the best of those two. They are almost the same price.
BTW: the initial impression with SmartSynchronize was not so good. I thought features were missing. But after two emails to the company I realized it’s all there, I just didn’t see it.
I have been a long time fan of A. Merge, prefer it even to BC2, although at home I use BC2 (yes, the price). Tried A. Merge for Mac a couple months ago, but it still has way to go before it gets to the same level as their Windows version (twice crashed on me while comparing folders and didn’t have a lot of the functionality that’s in the Windows version). Tried zsCompare, ChronoSync, SmartSynchronize, and DeltaWalker. Never heard of DeltaWalker either, but it stole the show for me - it’s feature rich and very, very intuitive (even more so if you’ve used A. Merge before). File comparison might be the best I’ve seen so far. I was thinking to ride the free trial till the end, but I noticed that the $30 ($60 for 3 platforms) is ?? and they were vague about how long the promotion will run. I run Linux at home too, so I wanna try it on Linux before I buy.
I lost two days trying to compare two sets of source files on Linux and Mac and was cursing the lack of Beyond Compare (or something as simple and effective as that one)… So, I decided to try myself out in something similar. I have working prototype (so if anyone is interested please send me an e-mail) - and am planning to make it as proper product. With one difference: it is going to be proper, free, open source software O:). So, if anyone is interested joining me or simple helping me with being beta tester or just by advice… you are all welcome!
Daniel, this is a thousand miles journey in an already crowded application space, I hope you know that. If you are indeed going forward with it, I can share my opinion, should you care. Just a few years ago, I was myself flirting with a similar idea. What’s your email?
Beyond Compare 3 for Linux is coming soon: http://www.scootersoftware.com.....0#Post6574
You might want to try this in the interim:
http://www.sourcegear.com/diffmerge/downloads.html
Hi Pete and others,
Sorry for not checking this - had been busy…
My e-mail is daniel ‘a character representing at sign’ sendula.com (let’s see how those e-mail harvesting programs will interpret this! ;) )
Yes - I would like to get in touch with you or anyone else who is interested in simple free comparison/synchronisation utility.
Currently it is pretty unstable and lacks of features and decoration but slowly it is forming an usable core of functionalities. Also, I am trying to code it with some future enhancements in mind… Beside that its design (GUI) is not up to the standard I would like it to be but unfortunately haven’t got enough time to pay my attention to it. Yet! :)
BTW - you can get the latest version if you follow ‘download’ link from: aequo.abstracthorizon.org
Enjoy!
http://www.sourcegear.com/diffmerge/downloads.html
works for me! thanks Grant!
Hello, I use now guiffy. http://www.guiffy.com
Before on Windows I used Beyond Compare every day also. It was one of most used tools because I was very happy when I found guiffy. Before I tried zsCompare. But the compare algorithm works somtimes very strange. But guiffy is great! I configured it that it works 98% like Beyond compare on Windows.
With the additional tool called OnMyCommand you can add guiffy very smooth to the Finder. Like it works in Windows Explorer. http://free.abracode.com/cmworkshop/
Here a help page: http://www.guiffy.com/help/Gui.....FinCM.html
bye,
Felix
If you’re like me and also a Beyond Compare devotee you might find Guiffy a little bit of a let down when comparing folder structures. This is one of my most frequent tasks when comparing a deployed .net or rails app to the dev version to see config differences and possible deployment mishaps.
After purchasing a copy of Guiffy I couldn’t get it to show me folders where subfolders were different (a default setting in BC2).
With a bit more poking around I found that it is possible! To get this crucial feature working go to Options-Folder Ignore and turn on the ‘Verify SubFolders Match’ option.
Guiffy still doesn’t win over BC2 but does a valiant job on the Mac, plus the developer appears to be dedicated to his product which is always a bonus.
The fact that BC2 does not exist for Mac is the main reason I have not switched to Mac. You would think Apple would come up with an intelligent solution for file management is Scooter won’t make a Mac version. It’s costing them sales!
On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....ison_tools
Some nice alternatives being listed here. Anyone know if any of these have remote / FTP support? For me, that was the biggest feature of BC.
A little shameless self-promotion here: I’m writing the app known as Changes, which features BC2-style line diff and directory syncing for OS X. It’s written completely in Cocoa and supports FTP and SFTP. It also has a command line interface, so you can integrate it with your workflow.
Check it out at http://changesapp.com. As a former BC2 user on windows, I want to provide the replacement for that fine application on OS X. If you’ll head to my site and download the beta, you’ll be able to help me fill this need on a platform we all love! The beta is free and I’m taking feature requests still for version 1.0.
I consider changing to a Mac .. but bevore doing this i wanted to know if there is an alternative for Beyond Compare. All your links have helped me mutch, i think one of those programms will sure work for me. But i feel already the pain of missing B.C. .. and i will miss Homesite!
Count me as another BC2 fan who is now switching from Windows to Mac at home. Unlike others though my first Max is a PPC G5 and have ordered more memory and HD space. Its my wife’s first Mac and she upgraded to a MacPro just so we could use Fusion for her.
In the past week I’ve covered most of the ground the other people here have. I maintain our iTunes folders between my computer and her computer. Unfortunately iTunes for Windows altered the filenames so most comparison tools fall short. BC2 lets me keep the systems in sync and to backup to an external drive.
Thank you to all who have published pointers to files and insights. I ‘ll review each one and hopefully can limp along until Scooter Software comes out with a Mac version. And I too have sent Scooter Software a friendly e-mail asking about their plans to support the Mac.
Take care,
Tony
Ian,
Changes works only with Leopard yet I do not plan on moving to Leopard any time soon. There are things I have that will not run under 10.5 and would prefer a solution not tied so closely to a single version of the OS.
Thanks,
Tony
Changes is as close as it gets guys. Gave it a go, and although its not totally bug free (what is after all), it is as close to BC as u are going to get on a mac I would say. It connects to my adrive.com via WebDav for comparision which is awesome so I am totally happy. At $39 though it is expensive when it does come to buy. But still. It is worth it I reckon.
I also recently drank the “Kool-Aid” and bought a MacBook Pro. I have never used Beyond Compare but I am looking forward to it. I downloaded the Beyond Compare tarball and installed it using the install script. It installed correctly but the binary is unable to run because it is a KDE application. I am going to try to install KDE for Mac (mac.kde.org) and see if I can get Beyond Compare going. I’ll keep you posted.
–Bigby
I have used Beyond Compare (BC) at work for about 8 years now. I switched to Mac at home in 2002. I would pay the same price as BC costs for a tool that works as well on Mac. Lacking that, I have been using a couple free tools.
One is kdiff3 (and I typically use it for two-way diffing although it can do 3-way diffs).
The other xxdiff, (which I started using under Linux about 4 years ago) is harder to launch than kdiff3 since directory comparison must be set up from the command line. But while it runs, I find the UI better than kdiff3 in some ways (such as keyboard shortcuts). Both xxdiff and kdiff3 can launch a file comparison from folder view by double-clicking a filename. xxdiff uses a separate window so file comparisons launched in sequence don’t require closing any other comparisons that are already open. It is nice that in 2006 somebody finally put an xxdiff universal binary on the web.
Most of the tools out there are pretty good for file diffing and as long as the comparison is side by side that’s a good start. But many of the tools leave a lot to be desired in folder view. When files don’t match, I don’t want to just see two colored file names next to each other where the colors only tell me the files differ (but nothing deeper). I want to see the BC-like where red=newer on one side vs. grey=older on the other side. I also find it very useful to see the timestamps on the files (which kdiff3 shows).
Changes could become my preferred app on Mac if it could overcome one thing. I saw the folder diff screeenshot and hated the black background with grey arrows in the middle for differing files. Give me the color coding similar to BC please, on a white background. Neither kdiff3 nor xxdiff provide a context clue about which file is newer (but kdiff3 does show the timestamps if the differing files are selected). So Changes has a distinct advantage since it provides a context clue about which is newer and it also shows timestamps for each filename. However, the feature request list for Changes shows that it is nowhere near the tool that BC is (and being relatively new, I hope that will change with time). All told, I am just not going to pay more than the cost of BC for a tool that attempts to emulate BC but still has such a long way to go to catch up.
PS - I only looked at the website for Changes, so if I made any error in my statements about the app then I am happy to receive corrections.
I wanted to give DeltaWalker (www.deltopia.com) another plug here as I’ve been a happy camper since purchasing it more than a year ago. It’s still missing a few things I’d occasionally like to have, but it’s fast, noticeably faster than most of the Mac apps listed here that I’ve tried at one point or another. It does FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, HTTP and works with ZIP and other compressed files. The tech support has been consistently very responsive.