dirdiff

dirdiff

dirdiff compares two directories recursively, locally or over SSH, and reports added, removed, and modified files and directories.

Prerequisites

• Go 1.26 or newer, to install via go install or build from source.
• For remote comparisons, SSH access to the remote host and a copy of the dirdiff binary on it (used as the --remote-bin path, or resolved on $PATH).

Installation

go install github.com/audivir/dirdiff@latest

Prebuilt binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows are attached to each GitHub Release.

Usage

dirdiff [options] <pathA|hostA:/pathA> <pathB|hostB:/pathB>

Either path can be local, or host:/path for a remote directory reached over SSH.

Common options:

• -i, --include, -e, --exclude: glob patterns to include or exclude files and directories from the comparison.
• -w, --workers: number of parallel workers, defaults to the number of CPUs.
• -L, --follow-symlinks: follow symbolic links.
• --flat: compare files by name only, ignoring directory structure.
• -f, --fast: glob patterns to hash with a faster sparse SHA256, plus -l, --fast-limit and -g, --global-limit to control the size limits used.
• -t, --tree: print a side-by-side tree view of the differences.
• -a, --show-all: also traverse files inside added or removed directories.
• -q, --quiet, -V, --verbose, -P, --no-progressbar, -C, --no-color: control output verbosity and styling.
• -r, --remote-bin, -s, --sudo, -n, --no-sudo: configure the remote agent binary path and privilege escalation per host.

Run dirdiff --help for the full list of options.

The exit code reports the comparison result:

• 0: the directories are identical.
• 1: differences were found on both sides.
• 2: an error occurred.
• 3: directory A is a subset of directory B.
• 4: directory B is a subset of directory A.

License

dirdiff is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.