delta

A pager that makes git diffs readable: syntax highlighting, word-level changes, side-by-side view and line numbers.

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Run by third parties, not by dandavison. Prefer the official page above when it works.

Package managers

About delta

Git's default diff output is a wall of red and green lines. delta reformats it with the same syntax-highlighting themes bat uses, highlights the exact words that changed within a line using an edit-distance algorithm, and can show the two sides next to each other with proper line wrapping.

It also improves merge conflict display and `git blame` output, syntax-highlights grep results from ripgrep and git grep, and can format commit hashes as terminal links to GitHub, GitLab, SourceHut or Codeberg. Copying code out of a diff works because the leading plus and minus markers are removed by default. It emulates diff-highlight and diff-so-fancy if you were using those.

Strengths

  • Word-level highlighting shows exactly what changed inside a line
  • Side-by-side view with line wrapping, and line numbers
  • Improves merge conflict and git blame output as well as diffs
  • Code copies cleanly because the +/- markers are stripped by default

Limitations

  • The package is called git-delta in most package managers while the command is delta, which confuses installs
  • Needs configuration in ~/.gitconfig before git uses it
  • Very large diffs are slower than plain git output
  • The number of style options is its own rabbit hole

Details

Pricing
Free · Free and open source under the MIT licence.
License
MIT
Developer
dandavison
Platforms
Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line
How it runs
Downloadable app
Account
Not required
Works offline
Yes
Best suited for
Reading git diffs and blame output without squinting
Categories
Command line tools
Last verified
Added
Provenance
Selected from the TechWalrus downloads catalog (Dev Tools); facts checked against the developer's own pages, 3 sources on file.

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