Text Diff Checker — Compare Two Texts or Code Side by Side

Text Diff Tool

Text

Diff Result

Original
1
Modified
1
Added
Modified
Removed

About the Text Diff Tool

Overview

Spotting what actually changed between two versions of a config file, a paragraph, or a pasted log is slow and error-prone when you're just scanning by eye. This tool runs a line-by-line diff on whatever you paste and renders the result as a color-coded, side-by-side comparison — added, removed, and modified lines are immediately visible, without needing a local git checkout or a diff viewer plugin.

How to Use

  1. 1Paste the original (before) text into the Original Text field.
  2. 2Paste the updated (after) text into the Modified Text field.
  3. 3Click Compare to render the Diff Result, with the Original and Modified panels highlighted according to the Added/Modified/Removed legend.
  4. 4Use the clear button to wipe both fields and start over.

Specifications & Glossary

  • Diff algorithm (LCS): Built on the Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) algorithm — the same family of algorithm behind tools like the classic Unix diff and Git's default diff engine. It identifies the longest sequence of lines common to both texts, then reports everything else as an addition or deletion relative to that shared backbone.
  • Line-level diff: Comparison happens at the line level, not the word or character level — a single edited word still marks the whole line as modified. This keeps results easy to scan for config files and prose, though it won't pinpoint the exact word that changed within a long line.
  • Highlight legend: Added (green) marks lines present only in the modified text, Removed (red) marks lines present only in the original, and Modified marks lines that exist in both but changed — the same red/green convention used by Git and most code review tools, so the result should feel familiar.
  • Side-by-side layout: Original and Modified are shown in two parallel panels rather than the interleaved +/- lines you'd get from a unified diff (the ---/+++ format used by `diff -u` or `git diff`). It takes more horizontal space, but it's easier to read when you want to compare the "before" and "after" of a line at a glance instead of reconstructing it from additions and deletions.
  • Diff result structure: Each line is classified into one of four states — unchanged, added, deleted, or modified — and the Diff Result card pairs the original and modified text for that line so you can see exactly what changed without cross-referencing two separate documents.

Use Cases

  • Sanity-checking a snippet's changes before opening a pull request, when you don't have the file in a local git checkout.
  • Diffing two versions of a YAML, JSON, or .env config file before deploying a change.
  • Proofreading a document and tracking exactly which sentences changed between drafts.
  • Worth knowing if you're used to GitHub: a PR's "Files changed" tab adds word-level highlighting inside a changed line, on top of the line-level diff. This tool only does line-level comparison, so a single-word edit in an otherwise long line will mark the entire line as Modified rather than underlining just the changed word. For quick line-by-line sanity checks that's usually enough; for fine-grained word diffs on prose, pair this tool with your editor's inline diff view.