What's the best visual merge tool for Git?

user_21482 0
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What's the best tool for viewing and editing a merge in Git? I'd like to get a 3-way merge view, with "mine", "theirs" and "ancestor" in separate panels, and a fourth "output" panel.

Also, instructions for invoking said tool would be great. (I still haven't figure out how to start kdiff3 in such a way that it doesn't give me an error.)

My OS is Ubuntu.

merge version-control git
18 Answers

Meld is a free, open-source, and cross-platform (UNIX/Linux, OSX, Windows) diff/merge tool.

Here's how to install it on:

user_208050

You can configure your own merge tool to be used with "git mergetool".

Example:

  git config --global merge.tool p4merge
  git config --global mergetool.p4merge.cmd p4merge '$BASE $LOCAL $REMOTE $MERGED'
  git config --global mergetool.p4merge.trustExitCode false

And while you are at it, you can also set it up as your difftool for "git difftool":

  git config --global diff.tool p4merge
  git config --global difftool.p4merge.cmd p4merge '$LOCAL $REMOTE'

Note that in Unix/Linux you don't want the $BASE to get parsed as a variable by your shell - it should actually appear in your ~/.gitconfig file for this to work.

Evgeny_114140

I hear good things about kdiff3.

Admin1

My favorite visual merge tool is SourceGear DiffMerge

  • It is free.
  • Cross-platform (Windows, OS X, and Linux).
  • Clean visual UI
  • All diff features you'd expect (Diff, Merge, Folder Diff).
  • Command line interface.
  • Usable keyboard shortcuts.

User interface

user_3270

Diffuse is my favourite but of course I am biased. :-) It is very easy to use:

$ diffuse "mine" "output" "theirs"

Diffuse is a small and simple text merge tool written in Python. With Diffuse, you can easily merge, edit, and review changes to your code. Diffuse is free software.

Admin1
Zorkerman_85630

You can change the tool used by git mergetool by passing git mergetool -t=<tool> or --tool=<tool>. To change the default (from vimdiff) use git config merge.tool <tool>.

user_351490

I've tried a lot of the tools mentioned here and none of them have quite been what I'm looking for.

Personally, I've found Atom to be a great tool for visualizing differences and conflict resolution/merging.

As for merging, there aren't three views but it's all combined into one with colored highlighting for each version. You can edit the code directly or there are buttons to use whichever version of that snippet you want.

I don't even use it as an editor or IDE anymore, just for working with git. Clean UI and very straight-forward, plus it's highly customizable.

  • You can start it from the command line and pass in a single file you want to open to, or add your project folder (git repo).

    • I would also recommend project-manager as a very convenient way to navigate between projects without filling up your tree view.

  • The only problem I've had is refreshing -- when working with large repositories atom can be slow to update changes you make outside of it. I just always close it when I'm finished, and then reopen when I want to view my changes/commit again. You can also reload the window with ctrl+shift+f5, which only takes a second.

And it's free of course.

user_40364750
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