Sometimes you have an old copy of a file and a new one, but cannot see what changed. Text Diff puts the lines beside the question: which lines stayed, which disappeared, and which were added?
Compare two short lists
Paste this into Original text:
apple
banana
Paste this into Changed text:
apple
orange
Choose Compare. The result keeps apple as an unchanged line, shows - banana for the removed line, and + orange for the added line. The status should show one addition and one removal. Read - as “in the old copy but not here now” and + as “in the new copy”.
If you expected no changes
This is a line-by-line comparison. A space at the end of a line can make two lines different even if they look identical on screen. Check line breaks and whitespace if the result surprises you. For two JSON documents where key order should not matter, use JSON Diff instead. Neither diff tool changes the originals.
Where your input goes
Processing runs in your browser. The tool does not upload your input to ilham.dev.
Related guide
For more background, read Text Formatting and Cleanup.
Questions you might have
- Does it compare word by word?
- It compares line by line, which is the right granularity for configs and code. A whitespace-only change still shows up as a change.
- Is there a version for structured data?
- Yes. The JSON Diff tool compares two documents structurally, so it ignores formatting and key order and reports only real differences.