Choosing Best Excel File Comparison Tool

Let's talk about ratings and reviews of excel file comparators to determine which one is the best
There are a number of Excel File Compare Tools on the market.

Which tool is the best and how to choose the best excel diff tool?

Unfortunately there is no ideal answer for this question, because there is no clear rating for the excel comparators on the web. Most of the published reviews you can find are inactual:

Most of the reviews are several years old

This is very important. We are improving product every month, adding new features and fixing issues reported by our customers. In a several months the product makes a huge step ahead and it should receive different impression. Probably, other publishers are doing the same with their excel diff tools - every day is a small step head. All issues described in some reviews were quickly solved by our developers, but they are still present in the review and create wrong opinion on the product.
Let's google for Best Excel File Compare Tool in browser. What to we get on the first line?
First result for my search query was an article from the Excel Comparison Tools Reviewed - The Detail Department resource:
Here are the products I tried:
  • Excel Compare by Formulasoft
  • Synkronizer - looks like it's by a Swiss company
  • Diff Doc - It's more of a text based comparison but it did say it compared Excel
  • 4 Tops Excel Comparison
  • Component Software ExcelDiff
  • Florencesoft DiffEngineX
and below is date of this article - 04 March 2006. This is just an example of the inactual information. More then 15 years passed from this review for Best Excel File Compare Tools. The world and market of the spreadsheet file compare tools has significantly changed from that time.

Is this review independent?

You can not be sure that published review is "independent" and was not published by someone, how has published own spreadsheet compare tool on the other website. This could be done with SEO purposes to increase google raninking or to publish fake aword on own website. We don't take such reviews into account and never create them for our xl comparator. If you see that author of the review puts your focus into one of the products - this is the case.

Set of Unique Options?

Some minor features are introduced as unique options. Like, only our product highlights changed cell with bold font or with red color or something like this. How to make an impression about the tool in such information garbage.

Best in class Excel Diff Tool

You may read in the review: We give you best in class tool. This is just a joke. Every publisher can define his own class and be the best in this class. Such software review is just a manipulation. There is only one class of Excel file comparison tools.

CONCLUSION: Which Excel File Comparison Tool is the best?

Top 3 Excel File Compare Tools

All software reviews we've found for excel compare tools, talk about following 3 products:
  • xlCompare
  • Synkronizer
  • Spreadsheet Compare
There are some other software products on the market, but they are not constantly included into ratings. They appear only from time to time and receive lowest ratings.
All of the products compare Excel files for differences and mark changed cells on the worksheets. But from the beginning we need to separate products in two groups:

FREE EXCEL COMPARATOR

  • Spreadsheet Compare (Spreadsheet Inquire Add-in)
This is free solution included into Microsoft Office 365 Plus. You can use it for simple tasks and if it works good for you - probably this is the best solution for your case.
Difference between xlCompare and Spreadsheet Inquire is described in the article below:

PAID EXCEL COMPARE TOOLS

  • xlCompare
  • Synkronizer
Both solutions are feature rich xlcomparators that have a lot of common features. And both of them are worth to try.
Products have different background:
xlCompare is completely independent from Excel application, based on the Spreadsheet Core engine
Synkronizer is an Excel based solution, installed as COM Add-in for Excel
One thing, that is common for these excel comparison tools, their purpose - generate and deliver to you best comparison results.
You are getting them at the similar price. But in the options and commands you are getting - xlCompare offers you much more:
  • Merge differences between two Excel worksheets
  • Filter comparison results on the worksheet
  • 3-way comparison for Excel sheets
  • Compare Excel sheets in the batch mode, using command line options
  • Compare Visual Basic code
  • Compare Visual Basic Form and Controls
  • Merge Excel files into one
  • Merge worksheets within same Excel workbook
Look into the image below that describes xlCompare features and options:
Excel Compare Features Map
We don't say that our product is the best and ultimate excel compare tool. We would like you to try and make your own decision. We will be happy to see you in the list of our customers and our company is always welcome your feedbacks and reports.
Our primary goal is to give you best product, but finally you need to decide yourself.

What does xlCompare customers say:

excel file comparison tool diff report
Fundamental tool
As a professional Excel/VBA developer, XLCompare has become a fundamental tool in my development process. It works on even the most code-heavy and complex of workbooks, and is something I just couldn't do without.
Peter Hamilton