Windows tool to diff 3 or more files

Question

I am looking for a tool for Windows. It must allow comparing at least 3 text blocks. Any recommendations?

Update: 4 or more files at the same time is even better

Answer 1

Your requirements, as stated, are minimal.

WinMerge will accomplish what you want. Specifically, it allows comparing three text files.

It is open-source, with the source code located here.

It is freeware and donations are accepted here.

Answer 2

vimdiff (or vim -d) can compare 3 or more files. I have not personally confirmed for vim on Windows, however.

Answer 3

Meld allows three-way comparison of files.

It is free and open source. There is an installer for Windows. Not that you need it, but others stumbling on this question might be interested in other platforms: It can be installed using the package manager on common Linux distributions; and though Mac isn't officially supported, there are some installers available for it anyway.

Answer 4

kDIFF3 will, as its name suggests, allow you to diff 3 files.

It is free, open source, well supported and :

• compares or merges two or three text input files or directories,
• shows the differences line by line and character by character (!),
• provides an automatic merge-facility and an integrated editor for - comfortable solving of merge-conflicts,
• supports Unicode, UTF-8 and other codecs, autodetection via byte-order-mark "BOM" supports KIO on KDE (allows accessing ftp, sftp, fish, smb etc.),
• Printing of differences,
• Manual alignment of lines,
• Automatic merging of version control history ($Log$),
• and has an intuitive graphical user interface.
• Windows-Explorer integration Diff-Ext-for-KDiff3 - shell extension included in installer