WinMerge

WinMerge is a free software tool for data comparison and merging of text-like files. It is useful for determining what has changed between versions, and then merging changes between versions.

WinMerge

Developer(s)	WinMerge Development Team
Initial release	November 20, 2000; 24 years ago (2000-11-20)
Stable release	2.16.46[1] (January 27, 2025; 2 months ago (2025-01-27)) [±]
Repository	github.com/WinMerge/winmerge
Written in	C++
Operating system	Microsoft Windows
Available in	Multilingual
Type	Data comparison
License	GPL
Website	winmerge.org

WinMerge runs on Microsoft Windows.

Features

• Visual differencing and merging of text files
• Flexible editor with syntax highlighting, line numbers, and word-wrap
• Handles DOS, Unix, and Mac text file formats
• Unicode support (as of version 2.8.0, UTF-8 files are correctly read without a BOM)
• Difference pane shows current difference in two vertical panes
• Location pane shows map of files compared
• Highlights differences inside lines in file compare
• Can also generate HTML report with differences highlighted
• Regular expression-based file filters in directory compare allow excluding and including items
• Moved lines detection in file compare
• Ability to ignore whitespace and letter case changes
• Creates patch files
• Shell integration (supports 64-bit Windows versions)
• Rudimentary Visual SourceSafe and IBM DevOps Code ClearCase integration
• Archive file support using 7-Zip
• Plug-ins
• Language localization via plain-text PO files
• Online manual and installed HTML help manual
• Generates normal, context, and unified patches.

Codebases and forks

WinMerge 2011 (discontinued) Developer(s) jtuc Initial release December 3, 2011; 13 years ago (2011-12-03) Preview release 2011.009.217 / May 26, 2019; 5 years ago (2019-05-26) Repository bitbucket.org/jtuc/winmerge2011 Written in C++ Operating system Microsoft Windows Available in Multilingual Type Data comparison License GPL Website bitbucket.org/jtuc/winmerge2011

WinMerge 2011 Developer(s) datadiode Initial release December 3, 2011; 13 years ago (2011-12-03) Preview release 0.2011.211.170 / June 5, 2021; 3 years ago (2021-06-05) Repository github.com/datadiode/winmerge2011 Written in C++ Operating system Microsoft Windows Available in Multilingual Type Data comparison License GPL Website github.com/datadiode/winmerge2011

For a planned development of version 3.x ^[2] no commits have been made to the 3.0 codebase since 2011.^[3]

In 2011 a fork of the 2.x codebase titled "WinMerge 2011" was created. This new branch has continued to see active feature and bug fix development. It has also removed ATL/MFC dependencies so that WinMerge can be built using the free Visual C++ Express editions.^[4]

See also

• Free and open-source software portal

• Comparison of file comparison tools