Kaleidoscope is a dedicated Mac diff and merge app. Hydra includes compare and merge as one part of a workspace that also holds your servers, databases and repositories.
If reviewing changes is a large part of your day, especially walking through Git history commit by commit, Kaleidoscope goes deeper. If what you mostly compare is your working copy against what is actually deployed, Hydra can do that directly, because either side of a comparison can be a server.
Kaleidoscope is a subscription; Hydra is bought once.
From each product's own website, checked October 6, 2026. Prices in US dollars.
| Hydra Dev Studio | Kaleidoscope | |
|---|---|---|
| Text | Side by side or unified, changed words highlighted, syntax colours; copy changes across and save, keeping encoding and line endings | Character-level differences, with inline and side-by-side views |
| Folders | Every file changed, only on one side, or identical, byte for byte, with an Exclude filter; copy whole files across | Folder trees, filtered by kind of change, file type or name |
| Images | Side by side, swipe, overlay, and a difference view that counts the changed pixels | Split, blink and drag modes |
| Binary files | Hex, with the differing bytes marked | Not listed |
| Files on servers | Either side can be on SFTP, FTP, WebDAV, S3, Azure or SMB, through the connections in your library; or compare two servers | Not listed |
| Three-way merge | Three columns (Yours, Result, Theirs) for Git conflicts; Save stays off until every conflict has an answer | Yes, showing the commits that led to the conflict |
| Git | Hydra can be git difftool and git mergetool, and is a Git client itself: stage by the hunk, commit, branches, push and pull | Difftool and mergetool, file history, changes between commits, and live working copy changes |
| Command line | hydra diff opens a window or prints a patch, and either side can be a server; patches export in the format git apply reads | ksdiff |
| Runs on | macOS 26 or later, Apple silicon | macOS 15 or later |
| Price | $99 once, with twelve months of updates; the version you have keeps working after that. Fourteen-day trial with everything unlocked. | Subscription from $8 a month. Seven-day trial. |
You review a lot of history: stepping through commits, or comparing any two points in a file's past.
You want a diff tool and nothing else, or you are on macOS 15.
Your team already standardises on it as the Git difftool.
The question you ask most is whether the server matches the repository. Point one side at the deployed folder over SFTP, S3 or SMB and the other at your working copy, and Hydra lists what differs, file by file.
You also need the tools around the comparison: an editor that saves back to the server, a Git client, a terminal and a database client, in the same window.
You want agents to get the same answer: hydra diff --patch prints the difference for Claude Code or a script, without opening a window.
You prefer a license you buy once.
Run hydra git-setup --apply and Git opens Hydra for git difftool and git mergetool; nothing else about your repositories changes, so you can keep Kaleidoscope installed and use both.
The trial is fourteen days with everything unlocked.
Fourteen days, everything unlocked, no account required.
Download for macOS