Using this tool you can paste your two lists into the two first text areas. Then when you hit compare 3 new lists will be generated:
- A list of lines that are in the first list but not in the second
- A list of lines that are in the second list but not in the first (comparison in opposite direction)
- A list of lines that are in both the provided lists.
The comparison uses newlines, meaning each line is seen as an individual line for comparison. This is done by splitting on newline (\n) and so you can easily copy from Excel, SQL table or the like.
The tool is of course free and it is all written client-side. Which means that nothing is sent to a server and the comparison is running on your own machine (I do not want your data). It can compare with trim where it removes whitespace and it can ignore case, both are enabled per default but can be disabled using the check boxes.
You are likely thinking: The tool is not pretty I know! At some point I might get around to make it a bit more stylish. I mostly made this for myself, but wanted to share it anyway.
Compare two lists and find the differences
You use it in the following way:
- Enter list one
- Enter list two
- Hit compare
- Check the first two result text areas for differences
- Check the last text area for similarities
List one
List two
Lines found in list one but not in list two
Lines found in list two but not in list one
Lines found in both lists
I made this tool because I was tired of writing SQL queries, console applications and excel spreadsheets for comparing lists of items (mostly unique keys and ids). So I made this easily available online comparison tool.
Feedback
Please let me know what you think of this tool down in the comments. If you think the tool should be extended in some way, write it down below!