If you’re a web developer managing multiple websites and web-applications, you are probably already comfortable with an application or set of applications and scripts for uploading and changing content. If you’re up for trying new things however, try out this cool little tool..

For FTP connections, most Windows, Mac and Linux development IDE’s already have built in support to upload and change content. However, for SFTP connections, or if you find you have to make quick changes to multiple sites on a regular basis, the built in IDEs are often too bulky or slow, especially if you have to open multiple instances of the IDE every-time you want to upload a change.

There are many solutions out there; I used WinSCP for quite awhile until the number of sites I had to support became very large. Then I stumbled upon BeyondCompare at the recommendation of a colleague.

Beyond Compare is a great all in one solution – it contains multiple tabs each run on a separate thread with individual uploads/downloads also maintained on separate threads.

Local file paths are linked to the remote locations and stored as “sessions” which you can quickly pop open at any time and create on the fly. It even contains a built in “diff”/”merge” tool to make binary or text comparisons between files without opening in an external application and easily shows you files that have changed by date/time stamp and text/content using a color coded system.

See below for a screenshot of the main menu, directory browsing and diff tool. (Website names blurred due to client confidentiality)
Main Menu:

Directory Browse:

Diff. Tool:

Download it here:

http://www.scootersoftware.com/download.php