dwdiff
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Description:
Diff that operates at the word level
Type: Formula  |  Latest Version: 2.1.4@11  |  Tracked Since: Dec 17, 2025
Links: Homepage  |  formulae.brew.sh
Category: Developer tools
Tags: diff text-processing developer-tools cli comparison
Install: brew install dwdiff
About:
dwdiff is a diff utility that operates at the word level rather than the character level. It is particularly useful for natural language text where character-level diffs can be noisy and hard to read. By comparing words, it produces cleaner, more readable output for documents and prose.
Key Features:
  • Word-level comparison instead of character-level
  • Colorized output for better readability
  • Configurable word delimiters
  • Support for generating HTML output
Use Cases:
  • Reviewing changes in documentation or prose
  • Comparing configuration files where whitespace changes are irrelevant
  • Generating readable diffs for natural language text
Alternatives:
  • git diff --word-diff – Built into Git, but dwdiff offers more control over word delimiters and formatting
  • wdiff – Similar concept, but dwdiff is more modern and actively maintained
License: GPL-3.0-only
Dependencies: icu4c@78
Bottles available for: arm64_tahoe, arm64_sequoia, arm64_sonoma, sonoma, arm64_linux, x86_64_linux
Version History
Detected Version Rev Change Commit
Sep 14, 2025 7:28pm 10 VERSION_BUMP 9944b4c8
Nov 17, 2024 9:45pm 9 VERSION_BUMP e6d4d32d
Oct 31, 2024 7:32am 9 VERSION_BUMP d7421727
Oct 31, 2024 12:57am 9 VERSION_BUMP afa86c2b
Sep 12, 2024 8:35am 7 VERSION_BUMP f8847fd3