Compare text, folders, binary files and CSV locally, with explicit merge choices and safe saves.
A native C# / .NET 10 Windows Forms app with VaporGrid Revision 5 styling and Dark as the default appearance. Free to run locally, with no mandatory paid software or services.
v0.2.0-beta.2 · Public beta for testing. This release adds VaporGrid Revision 5, a keyboard command palette, and more responsive scrolling in large comparisons.
- Open the beta release and download the Windows x64 ZIP.
- Install the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime for Windows x64 if needed.
- Extract the entire ZIP, then run DiffBeacon.exe from the extracted directory.
The Windows x64 package is unsigned and framework-dependent. You need the Desktop Runtime even when another .NET runtime is installed.
Choose a mode, select two paths and click Compare. For snippets, leave paths blank and paste into the Text editors. Merge actions update editors. Use Save Left As…, Save Right As… or Save Merged As… to write files explicitly.
- Review and edit text with aligned differences, Line/Word/Character highlighting, synchronized scrolling, an overview map and difference navigation.
- Merge deliberately with selected-text or strict aligned-block actions, bounded merge undo and Base/Local/Remote conflict choices.
- Save with safeguards that preserve supported Unicode encoding, BOM and newline convention, reject stale files and retain backups on replacement.
- Compare recursive folders by content with basename filters, exclusions, ignored directories and explicit incomplete-scan reporting.
- Inspect binary and table differences through streamed full-file binary checks and positional CSV/TSV cell comparison.
- Keep your workflow local with comparison tabs, path/options sessions, escaped HTML reports, CLI equality checks and opt-in Git difftool setup.
See usage and hard limits, CLI and Git setup, and the implemented and planned feature matrix.
Text editing and alignment have explicit size budgets. Folder and table modes are read-only. Large-file binary scans retain limited samples. Advanced document formats, folder synchronization and Git mergetool remain planned. Review all limits and save behavior before working with important files.
Toggling Word Wrap between typing and Undo can lose native typing undo history. Physical DPI and text scaling, live high contrast, and full accessibility acceptance are still open. See the beta release notes and verification evidence.
Use the .NET 10 SDK on Windows. The app and libraries use the installed framework and standard library.
Build, package and smoke commands are in Build and verify. Five reusable net10.0 libraries expose text, file, format and session logic. See module boundaries and local consumption.
MIT · VaporGrid adaptation and attribution · Product specification