I have never liked default linux diff command. The more changes you make, the less informative it becomes. When you work with git it would be nice to have side-by-side comparison of original file and a new file with changes. Graphical tools like smartgit and meld do it really impressive. But sometimes it is more comfortable to use command line tools. For colourful side-by-side git diff you can use cdiff. The simpliest way to install it is with pip package manager: pip install cdiff Then in your repository run: cdiff -s And the result is gorgeous! The next tool is called icdiff. It does basicly the same, but with files. Install it with that command: curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jeffkaufman/icdiff/release-1.2.0/icdiff | sudo tee /usr/local/bin/icdiff > /dev/null && sudo chmod ugo+rx /usr/local/bin/icdiff Use it like this: icdiff file1 file2