Deff
Shares rank 7 of 13 diff tools by recommenders
Free terminal app for side-by-side git diff review, with file skipping, extra context and comments to send changes back. Critics say its UI takes too much terminal space.
Free terminal app for side-by-side git diff review, with file skipping, extra context and comments to send changes back. Critics say its UI takes too much terminal space.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 80%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
More context around changes
“I personally prefer a bit more context. Thats why I added a bit more of it to deff.”
Comment from 26 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Deff – side-by-side Git diff review in your terminal” “most of them did not have enough context for my workflow tbh”
Comment from 26 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Deff – side-by-side Git diff review in your terminal”
Other diff tools people recommend
The four most recommended other diff tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| difftastic | 23 | 1 | 96% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Weave merge tool | 20 | 11 | 65% | 6 | — | — |
| Mergiraf | 19 | 4 | 83% | 5 | 6 mo3 owners | Approved |
| sem | 19 | 7 | 73% | 5 | — | Approved |
| DeffThis page | 8 | 2 | 80% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
9 of the 12 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“this seems to work pretty well with jj”
“I like the ability to add comments to "send it back" for another pass.”
“8 terminal lines are taken by the tool's UI. Could have been 2.”
“I'm not sure how useful the side-by-side view is.”
“most of them did not have enough context for my workflow tbh”
“it is super fast in the navigation of those”
“looks pretty good at a glance”
“I personally prefer a bit more context. Thats why I added a bit more of it to deff.”
“it is good to have the file-awareness for git diff esp. the ability to quickly skip files that I know aren't important”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.