Text Compare
Compare two texts line by line and see exactly what changed. 100% free, no signup. Everything runs in your browser.
This free text compare tool puts two versions of a text side by side and shows you exactly what changed. Paste the original into one box, the newer version into the other, and press Compare. Added lines are highlighted in green, removed lines in red, and everything untouched stays plain, so a single glance tells you what moved. Trying to spot changes by reading two documents in turn is slow and unreliable, and a one word edit buried in a long paragraph is almost impossible to catch that way. This does the comparison properly using the same line matching approach that developers rely on, and it does it entirely inside your browser, so contracts, drafts and code never leave your device.
How to use
- Paste the original version into the left box.
- Paste the changed version into the right box.
- Press Compare. The result appears underneath with added lines in green and removed lines in red.
- Read the three counters first. They tell you at a glance how big the change actually is.
- Scroll the result to see each change in context, since unchanged lines are shown too.
- Press Clear both when you want to start again with a different pair.
Why use our text compare?
The comparison is done line by line using a proper matching algorithm rather than a simple position check, which matters more than it sounds. If someone inserts one sentence near the top, a naive comparison marks every line after it as changed and the result is useless. This tool recognises that the rest of the text simply moved down, so you only see the single real edit.
Everything runs locally, and for this particular job that is a serious point. The documents people most want to compare are exactly the ones they should not upload: contract drafts, legal clauses, unpublished articles, configuration files, private code. None of it is transmitted here. The tool also handles large texts, and tells you clearly when something is too big rather than freezing. Once you know what changed, the word counter tells you whether the new version still fits your limit, and the case converter fixes any capitalization that drifted along the way.
Who is this tool for?
Writers and editors compare drafts to see what a collaborator actually changed, which is far quicker than reading both versions and hoping to notice. Anyone who has received a document back marked "minor edits" knows those two words cannot be trusted. Translators check whether a source text has been revised since they last worked on it, so they only retranslate the parts that moved.
Legal and admin staff compare contract versions before signing, where a single changed clause matters enormously and reading forty pages twice is not realistic. Developers compare configuration files, environment settings and log output when one server behaves differently from another. Students compare their own drafts to see how a piece evolved. Support teams compare a working setup against a broken one, which is often the fastest route to finding what someone changed by accident.
Frequently asked questions
No. The whole comparison runs in your browser using JavaScript. Nothing is transmitted, logged or stored, which makes it safe for contracts, unpublished writing and internal code.
It finds the longest sequence of lines the two texts have in common, then treats everything else as added or removed. That is why inserting a line near the top does not mark the whole rest of the document as changed.
Not currently. If any part of a line changes, the whole line shows as removed and the new version as added. Splitting long paragraphs onto separate lines before comparing gives you a more precise view.
Not directly. Open the document, select the text, copy it and paste it into the boxes. Formatting will not carry over, but the wording compares perfectly, and wording is usually what you are checking.
Very large texts are limited because the comparison work grows quickly with length. If you hit that limit the tool tells you clearly and you can compare a section at a time rather than the whole document.
Look for invisible differences: trailing spaces, tabs against spaces, or line endings from a different operating system. These are real differences even though your eye cannot see them, and they are a common cause of confusing bugs.