Compare Two Lists

Paste two lists and instantly see which items are unique to each, which they share, or the full combined set. Case-insensitive matching, trimming and blank-skipping are built in. A free list comparison tool that runs in your browser.

This tool compares two lists and shows you the difference between them. Paste one list on the left and another on the right, and pick what you want to see: items in the first but not the second, items in the second but not the first, items in both, everything combined, or only the items that appear in just one of the lists. It trims spaces and ignores case by default so near-matches line up, and it removes duplicates from the result. It is the quick way to reconcile two sets of names, emails, IDs or SKUs.

  • No sign-up, ever
  • 100% free
  • Nothing uploaded
  • Works offline after first load
  • No limits, no email wall
List A
List B
Result

How to use it

  1. 1

    Paste both lists

    Put one list in column A and the other in column B, one item per line.

  2. 2

    Choose what to show

    Pick in-A-not-B, in-B-not-A, in-both, the union, or items unique to one list.

  3. 3

    Copy the result

    The matching items appear in the third column with a count. Copy them out.

When it comes in handy

Reconciling records

Find which names or emails are in one export but missing from another.

Spotting what changed

Compare an old and a new list to see what was added or removed.

Finding shared items

See which entries two lists have in common, deduplicated in one place.

Instant & 100% private — nothing is uploaded

Every keystroke is handled right here in your browser. Your text is never sent to a server, so there is no sign-up, no email wall, and no length cap from us. Load the page once and it keeps working even if you go offline.

Frequently asked questions

How is this different from a diff checker?
A diff checker compares two texts line by line in order and highlights edits, which suits documents and code. This tool treats each list as a set: order does not matter, and it answers set questions like "what is in A but not B". Use a diff for prose you are editing, and list compare for reconciling collections of items.
Does capitalisation and spacing affect matching?
By default the tool trims leading and trailing spaces and ignores case, so " Alice" and "alice" are treated as the same item. You can turn either off if your data is case-sensitive or the spacing is meaningful, which changes what counts as a match.
Are duplicates within a list handled?
Yes. The result is deduplicated, so if an item appears several times in a list it still shows once in the output. That keeps the comparison about which items exist in each list rather than how many times they repeat.

More tools

Word CounterCount words, characters, sentences and reading time live.Character CounterCount characters with or without spaces, against post limits.Case ConverterSwitch between UPPER, lower, Title, camel, snake and kebab case.Reverse Text GeneratorReverse characters, words or line order, or flip your text.URL Slug GeneratorTurn a title into a clean, lowercase, hyphenated URL slug.Text RepeaterRepeat text a set number of times with your own separator.

More from the Hivly network

Free sister tools on our other sites.

Fancy Text GeneratorType once, get 20+ copy-paste font styles in a single list.JSON Formatter & ValidatorBeautify, minify, validate JSON with a collapsible tree view.Citation GeneratorAPA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard references plus in-text citations.