OmniDiff
Dev tools
git difftool
SHOW HN2026
213points
51comments
#262of 4,366 in 2026
Top 7%of 2026 by points
How HN took it
DebatedReal support and real criticism
9 positive, 11 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 8 critical, out of 29 comments about the project. Thread score +0.06.
Idea: 3 for, 4 againstExecution: 1 for, 2 againstDesign: 2 for, 1 againstDocs: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Produces much more minimal, accurate diffs, with good handling of moved code
From 3 comments
Really well done, I like this a lot. It produces much more minimal diffs than other tools I've tried. One feature I miss from difftastic is showing diffs side-by-side on wide…
arkenflame on HNIt’s much much better with moved code. Delta adds color to the standard git diff algorithm. Omnidiff uses a completely different algorithm. About a third of diffs are…
FabCH on HNThis looks really good. It does look like you put a ton of effort into it, I'll give it a try. I feel like the moved code cases would look great in…
andunie on HN
Copyleft AGPL license appreciated
From 2 comments
cool to see fresh Rust software with copyleft license ! I feel safer, as a user, enjoying the freedoms that the AGPL provides me. (No evil middleman will be able to give me…
enriquto on HNI support the choice of AGPL. I wish more software used it. Whenever I use AI to write code, in my experience it invariably chooses the MIT license. For example, for all the…
shock on HN
Visual demos look impressive
From 2 comments
Wow.. that looks great
z0al on HNWow, I've often wished I had a tool like this. Thanks! Since most people do click-and-run most of the time (based on decades long research, n=1), I'll just add paste the link for…
bita_nidir on HN
Objections
Packaging is harder to install than delta, no Arch or brew on Linux easily
From 1 comment
Delta has a really nice way to show diffs with its diff-so-fancy mode, it's more similar to GitHub's UI where not only the line is colored up differently but there's a different…
nickjj on HN
Crashes on very large degenerate files like huge byte arrays
From 2 comments
It will crash. But so will every other tool, because it is things like a C++ header file with 128MB of PNG data hardcoded as an array. Editors don’t even open those files.
FabCH on HNIt's a tradeoff. The length itself is not a problem. It will happily diff normal multi-MB files. The problem is the degenerative syntax tree that TreeSitter produces in case of,…
FabCH on HN
Git difftool setup produced a single-column output for one user
From 1 comment
I don't know what I did wrong, but using this as a git difftool (following the config) I didn't get any of the cool things from the demos, I got a weird single-column diff output…
andunie on HN
AGPL license limits adoption compared to MIT
From 2 comments
You have a good core idea here. You're pretty much killing your project in infancy with the AGPL+donation license model. Meanwhile, some other projects will take the core idea of…
anilgulecha on HNServitude to their masters
lejalv on HN
Requests
Side-by-side on wide terminals, unified when narrow
From 1 comment
Really well done, I like this a lot. It produces much more minimal diffs than other tools I've tried. One feature I miss from difftastic is showing diffs side-by-side on wide…
arkenflame on HN
Highlight whole lines, not only changed characters
From 1 comment
Delta has a really nice way to show diffs with its diff-so-fancy mode, it's more similar to GitHub's UI where not only the line is colored up differently but there's a different…
nickjj on HN
Three-way merge support
From 1 comment
Nicely done OP. Does it do 3-way diffs for merges as well? The instructions only mention the two-way `git difftool` configuration so maybe that'll be a future feature? Any…
davvid on HN
Upstream into git mergetools
From 1 comment
Nicely done OP. Does it do 3-way diffs for merges as well? The instructions only mention the two-way `git difftool` configuration so maybe that'll be a future feature? Any…
davvid on HN
Figma or Photoshop file support
From 1 comment
Very cool! I'd love to see support for figma or Photoshop, perhaps it's already possible via export to an image format, but native would be cool.
smallnix on HN
Questions
How does it compare to difftastic and delta
From 3 comments
How does it compare to Difftastic[1]? Both built on top of TreeSitter and solve similar problems. [1] https://difftastic.wilfred.me.uk/
z0al on HNHow is it better or worse compared to https://github.com/dandavison/delta ?
paaloeye on HNDelta has a really nice way to show diffs with its diff-so-fancy mode, it's more similar to GitHub's UI where not only the line is colored up differently but there's a different…
nickjj on HN
Can it be used with git diff without changing global config
From 2 comments
Is there a way to use it with git without having to change your global git config? I.e. `git diff | omnidiff` or something? You can do this with delta: `git diff | delta…
gslepak on HNhttps://github.com/ivankovic/omnidiff#usage ``` OmniDiff also works directly with git diff and git log -p, through GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF. This path needs no difftool config:…
forgotpwd16 on HN
Examples of where it is better
From 2 comments
Do you have any examples illustrating how it's better?
eviks on HNDelta has a really nice way to show diffs with its diff-so-fancy mode, it's more similar to GitHub's UI where not only the line is colored up differently but there's a different…
nickjj on HN
Alternatives named
difftastic
From 2 comments
How does it compare to Difftastic[1]? Both built on top of TreeSitter and solve similar problems. [1] https://difftastic.wilfred.me.uk/
z0al on HNHow does it compare with diffstatic?
cocoto on HN
delta
From 2 comments
How is it better or worse compared to https://github.com/dandavison/delta ?
paaloeye on HNIs there a way to use it with git without having to change your global git config? I.e. `git diff | omnidiff` or something? You can do this with delta: `git diff | delta…
gslepak on HN
mergiraf
From 1 comment
You could try https://mergiraf.org/
XYen0n on HN
diffsitter
From 1 comment
> Meanwhile, some other projects will take the core idea of "language aware differ" and release BSD, and one of those will win, including perhaps making it into git/future…
IshKebab on HN