What does text compare do?
Highlights additions (green) and deletions (red) between two text versions using the Myers diff algorithm — runs entirely in your browser.
Paste two versions to see side-by-side or inline diffs with color-coded changes—compared locally, never uploaded.
Configure how differences are displayed
Enter texts above to see the differences highlighted here.
Try clicking "Load Sample" to see an example
Text comparison finds additions, deletions, and unchanged text between two versions using a diff algorithm. Changes are highlighted in color — green for additions, red for deletions — for instant visual review.
Online text comparison (also called text diff or text comparison) applies a diff algorithm to two text inputs and highlights every difference between them.
**What it shows:**
• **Green (added)**: text in the new version that was not in the original
• **Red (deleted)**: text in the original that was removed
• **Gray/white (unchanged)**: content that appears identically in both versions
**Comparison modes:**
• **Side-by-side**: original on the left, new version on the right — easy to spot what changed where
• **Inline**: single view with additions and deletions interleaved — compact and good for text-heavy documents
• **Word diff**: highlights individual changed words within lines — better for prose than line-by-line
**Algorithm**: The Myers diff algorithm (1986) is used — the same algorithm as Git, GitHub, and most code editors. It finds the minimum set of changes (shortest edit distance) to transform Text A into Text B.
**Common uses**: proofreading, contract revision, code review without version control, comparing API outputs, auditing configuration changes.
Concise answers for common searches — definitions, steps, and comparisons.
Highlights additions (green) and deletions (red) between two text versions using the Myers diff algorithm — runs entirely in your browser.
Yes — all comparison runs in your browser. Your text is never uploaded to a server.
In the left panel, paste the original (older, baseline) version of your text.
In the right panel, paste the new (revised) version. The tool compares the right against the left.
Select side-by-side for a visual two-column view, or inline to see all changes in a single column. Toggle word diff for character-level or word-level precision.
Green highlights show additions; red shows deletions. Use the change counter to see how many insertions and deletions there are. Copy the diff output or share via URL.
Common real-world scenarios where this tool saves time.
Compare two drafts of an article, report, or proposal to see exactly what an editor changed — without reading both versions line by line.
Paste two versions of a contract to immediately see which clauses were modified, added, or removed between drafts. Faster and more accurate than manually reading both.
Compare two versions of a function, configuration file, or SQL query without a version control system — useful for ad-hoc code review or comparing ChatGPT outputs.
Compare two translated versions of the same source text to see where translations diverge — useful for localization review.
Compare the current live text of a webpage with a proposed update to review exactly what changed before publishing.
When to use each tool.
| Feature | Text Compare (web) | Git diff |
|---|---|---|
| Setup required | None — paste and go | Git repo required |
| File history | No | Full commit history |
| Multiple files | No — one pair at a time | Yes — entire repo |
| Speed for large files | Slower (browser) | Fast (native) |
| Privacy | Browser-local | Local if not pushed |
| Best for | Quick one-off comparisons | Version-controlled projects |
Advertisement
They are effectively the same thing — both terms describe comparing two text versions to find changes. 'Diff' is the more technical term (from the Unix diff utility); 'text compare' or 'text comparison' is the more user-friendly term. Both use the same underlying algorithms.
By default, yes — 'Hello' and 'hello' are treated as different words. Most comparison tools offer a case-insensitive mode that ignores capitalization differences. Similarly, you can enable whitespace-insensitive mode to ignore extra spaces and line breaks.
Yes — but very large texts (100,000+ words) may be slower since the diff algorithm scales with the number of changes. For extremely large files (source code repositories, entire books), use command-line diff or Git, which handle large files more efficiently.
Word diff shows changes at the individual word level rather than the whole line. If one word changes in a line, only that word is highlighted — rather than the entire line being marked as deleted and re-added. Word diff is better for prose editing; line diff is better for code where entire lines are often the unit of change.
Yes — paste any code as plain text. The comparison is purely textual; it does not understand code structure. For semantically meaningful code comparison (understanding function changes, refactoring), use Git diff or a code-aware diff tool. Text compare is useful for quick code comparisons outside a version control context.
No — all comparison runs in your browser using JavaScript. Your text is never sent to EverydayTools servers. This makes it safe to compare confidential contracts, private source code, internal documents, or sensitive data.
Similarity % measures how much of the text is shared between both versions. 100% = identical texts; 0% = completely different. It is calculated as: (unchanged characters) / (total characters in the longer text) × 100. A similarity of 95% means 5% of the text differs — useful for a quick summary of how much changed.
Copy and paste the text content from both documents into the two panels. Word documents: Ctrl+A to select all, Ctrl+C to copy. PDFs: select all text in your PDF reader, copy, then paste. Formatting (bold, italics, tables) is not preserved — only plain text is compared.
Text is compared locally. No text content is transmitted to EverydayTools servers.
For version-controlled code, prefer Git diff for semantically meaningful comparison.
Part of Text Tools
More free tools for the same workflow.
Advertisement
Reviewed on 2026-06-08.