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Re:Show HN: OmniDiff – Opensource, super fast, content aware... by z0al on Monday November 02, 2026 @03:57AM (#50334517)
How does it compare to Difftastic[1]? Both built on top of TreeSitter and solve similar problems.

[1] https://difftastic.wilfred.me.uk/

Re:Show HN: OmniDiff – Opensource, super fast, content aware... by FabCH on Monday November 02, 2026 @04:11AM (#50334593)
Comparing is slightly complicated but roughly speaking:

Difftastic only diffs code, which is only 2/3 of all diffs.

When only measured on stuff difftastic supports:

Difftastic is perfect on 64% of diffs and near-perfect on 17% more.

Omnidiff is perfect on 90% of diffs and near-perfect on 5% more.

Speed is

p50 - 35ms difftastic vs 4ms OmniDiff p99 - 637ms vs 420ms

Difftastic is MIT vs AGPL.

Re:Show HN: OmniDiff – Opensource, super fast, content aware... by z0al on Monday November 02, 2026 @04:27AM (#50334689)
> Difftastic only diffs code, which is only 2/3 of all diffs.

Care to elaborate? What does Omnidiff offer for non-code files?

Re:Show HN: OmniDiff – Opensource, super fast, content aware... by FabCH on Monday November 02, 2026 @04:44AM (#50334799)
https://ivankovic.github.io/omnidiff/showcase/content.html

Note that you do need a terminal with image support, like kitty, alacritty.

If you do not have image support, it does its best with image2ascii, but it is obviously severely limited.

Re:Show HN: OmniDiff – Opensource, super fast, content aware... by z0al on Monday November 02, 2026 @04:46AM (#50334814)
Wow.. that looks great
Re:Show HN: OmniDiff – Opensource, super fast, content aware... by Tooster on Monday November 02, 2026 @07:46AM (#50336102)
> Difftastic is perfect on 64% of diffs and near-perfect on 17% more.

> Omnidiff is perfect on 90% of diffs and near-perfect on 5% more.

I did not find examples in the repo or any way to test what "perfect" or "near perfect" in those cases mean. On the playground you compare against unix diff only. Based on my quick comparisons with difft, I do not see much difference. Could you add a link to comparisons or show how it differs and what are those numbers based on??? I'm not dismissive, just looking for a proof or showcase.

Re:Show HN: OmniDiff – Opensource, super fast, content aware... by FabCH on Monday November 02, 2026 @08:11AM (#50336382)
It’s in the research/ directory.

Fair warning: the true comparison is fairly complex and doesn’t really lend itself to “quick comparison”.