KDiff3 is an open source graphical text difference analyzer for up to 3 input files, provides character-by-character analysis and a text merge tool with integrated editor.
It can also compare and merge directories.
KDiff3 runs best on KDE but can be built without it.
Key Features
- Intuitive graphical user interface.
- Compares or merges two or three text input files or directories.
- Shows the differences line by line and character by character.
- Automatic merge-facility.
- Integrated editor for comfortable solving of merge-conflicts.
- Supports Unicode, UTF-8 and other codecs, autodetection via byte-order-mark “BOM”.
- Supports KIO on KDE (allows accessing ftp, sftp, fish, smb etc).
- Printing of differences.
- Manual alignment of lines.
- Automatic merging of version control history.
- KDE-Konqueror/Dolphin service menu plugin.
Website: invent.kde.org/sdk/kdiff3
Support:
Developer: Joachim Eibl
License: GNU General Public License v2.0

KDiff3 is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| GUI Diff Tools | |
|---|---|
| Meld | Graphical diff viewer and merge application for the Gnome desktop |
| Kompare | KDE diff tool supporting a variety of diff formats |
| Diffuse | Tool for merging and comparing text files |
| TkDiff | Graphical front end to the diff program |
| objdiff | Local diffing tool for decompilation project |
| KDiff3 | Text difference analyzer for up to 3 input files |
| xxdiff | File and directories comparator and merge tool |
| RustDiff | Semantic JSON and XML diff tool |
| RCompare | File and directory comparison toolkit |
| Text Compare | Compare old and new text |
| jdDiff | Basic cross platform diff viewer |
| DiffPDF | Compare two PDF files |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
Explore our carefully curated directory of recommended free and open source software, covering every major software category.The directory forms part of our extensive collection of articles for Linux enthusiasts. It includes hundreds of detailed reviews, together with free and open source alternatives to proprietary software from companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. LinuxLinks also covers interesting projects worth exploring, Linux-compatible hardware, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Know a useful free and open source Linux application that we haven’t covered? Tell us about it using our submission form. |


Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
kdiff3 project moved to KDE infrastructure long times ago. Links provided in the article are outdated.
Link updated, thanks.