Text Tools Coding

Free Text Diff Checker

Paste two texts and instantly see every addition, deletion and change — line by line. Split view or unified view. No sign-up, 100% private.

Free forever No sign-up Instant results 100% private
View: Options:
Original Text
Revised Text
Diff Result
Added Removed

About the Text Diff Checker

The Tool Empire Text Diff Checker compares any two pieces of text and instantly highlights every line that was added, removed, or left unchanged. It works equally well for prose documents, code files, configuration files, JSON data, contracts, emails, and anything else you can paste as plain text.

Additions are shown in green and deletions in red, with the unchanged context lines in between so you always have orientation within the document. Choose between Split view — original on the left, revised on the right — or Unified view, which shows a single column with + and − prefixes, similar to a Git diff output.

Two optional flags help you focus on what matters: Ignore case treats uppercase and lowercase as identical, and Ignore whitespace strips leading/trailing spaces so pure formatting changes don't clutter the result. The stats bar at the bottom reports lines added, removed, unchanged, and a similarity percentage so you can quickly gauge how much of the document changed.

Privacy first

All comparison logic runs locally in JavaScript — your text is never transmitted to any server. This makes it safe to compare confidential drafts, proprietary code, legal documents, or patient notes.

How to Use the Diff Checker

1
Paste Original
Paste your first (original) text into the left panel. Use the Paste button for quick clipboard access.
2
Paste Revised
Paste the updated or revised version of the text into the right panel.
3
See Differences
The diff result appears immediately below — green for additions, red for deletions, grey for unchanged lines.
4
Choose View Mode
Toggle between Split (side-by-side) and Unified (single column) using the buttons in the controls bar.
5
Apply Filters
Enable "Ignore case" or "Ignore whitespace" to hide cosmetic differences and focus on meaningful changes.
6
Copy or Share
Click "Copy diff" to copy the unified diff output to your clipboard with + and − line prefixes.

Behind the Scenes

The diff engine uses the Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) dynamic programming algorithm — the same fundamental approach used by Unix diff and Git. Here's how it works step by step:

Step 1 — Split into lines

Both texts are split on newline characters (\n) to produce two arrays of strings. Each element is a single line.

Step 2 — Build the DP table

A 2D table of size (m+1) × (n+1) is filled where m and n are the line counts of the two texts. Each cell dp[i][j] stores the length of the longest common subsequence of the first i lines of text A and the first j lines of text B.

Step 3 — Backtrack to build the edit script

Starting from dp[m][n], the algorithm walks backwards through the table. A diagonal step (both indexes decrease by 1) means the lines are equal (eq). A step left means a line was added in B; a step up means a line was deleted from A.

Step 4 — Render the result

Alpine.js renders the edit script as a reactive list. Each line gets a CSS class (add, del, or eq) which applies the colour-coded background and left border.

LCS Algorithm
O(m×n) DP — minimal edit distance between two line sequences
Alpine.js
Reactive computed properties re-run the diff on every keystroke
Vanilla JS
Zero dependencies beyond Alpine — no libraries, no bundle
No Server
100% client-side — text never leaves your browser

Use Cases

Writers & Editors

Compare a first draft against an edited version to see exactly what an editor changed — without needing Microsoft Word's Track Changes feature. Useful for freelancers reviewing editor revisions before accepting them.

Software Developers

Compare code snippets, configuration files, JSON responses, SQL scripts, or log files between two versions. The monospace font and line-level precision make it ideal for spotting regressions in output.

SEO & Content Teams

Compare an original page's body copy against a rewrite to ensure key phrases are preserved, no accidental deletions occurred, and the character count change is within expected bounds before pushing to production.

Legal & Contract Review

Identify exactly which clauses were added, removed, or modified between two contract versions. The privacy-first design means sensitive legal text never leaves your device.

Students & Academic Writers

Compare assignment drafts before and after tutor feedback. Check that all suggested edits were incorporated. Compare two sources for unintentional paraphrasing.

Translators

Compare source document revisions to identify exactly which sentences changed — so you only re-translate the modified portions rather than the entire document.

Frequently Asked Questions

The tool implements the Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) algorithm to identify lines that are identical in both texts, then marks the remaining lines as additions or deletions. All computation runs locally in your browser — nothing is sent to a server.
No. Everything is processed locally in JavaScript inside your browser. Your text never leaves your device, making it safe to compare confidential documents, source code, or personal data.
Split view shows the original text on the left and the revised text on the right, with changed lines highlighted side-by-side — great for visual comparison. Unified view shows a single column with + and − prefixes like a standard Git diff — better for copying and sharing.
When enabled, leading and trailing spaces are stripped and consecutive internal spaces are collapsed to one before comparison. Lines that differ only in spacing are treated as equal, so you can focus on meaningful content changes rather than formatting.
All text is converted to lowercase before comparison so lines that differ only in capitalisation — like "Hello World" vs "hello world" — are treated as equal and shown as unchanged.
Yes. Paste any amount of text — articles, code files, contracts, emails. The tool handles large documents well, though very long inputs (100k+ lines) may be slightly slower due to the O(m×n) algorithm complexity.
Yes. The monospace font and line-by-line comparison make it well-suited for comparing code snippets, config files, JSON, SQL, or any structured text between two versions.
Yes — click "Copy diff" in the controls bar to copy the unified diff output to your clipboard. Each line is prefixed with "+" for additions, "-" for deletions, and two spaces for unchanged lines.
Similarity = (unchanged lines × 2) / (total lines in A + total lines in B). This gives a value between 0% (completely different) and 100% (identical).
The Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) dynamic programming algorithm — the same fundamental approach used by Unix diff and Git. It finds the minimal set of line-level edits needed to transform text A into text B.
Tags Text Diff Compare Text Find Differences Side by Side Unified Diff Code Compare Document Compare Version Control LCS Algorithm Writing Tool SEO Content Free Online Tool
Hashtags #DiffChecker #TextComparison #DevTools #WritingTools #ContentSEO #CodeReview #FreeTools #GitDiff #TheToolEmpire
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