Image Compare - Image Comparison & Visual Diff Tool for Linux and Windows

Image Compare is a desktop image comparison and visual diff tool for Linux and Windows. Compare two or more images side by side, in a stacked view, or in a grid layout, and generate luminance SSIM heatmaps to highlight structural differences between two images.

Use it to compare different versions of the same image, choose the best-quality copy from multiple sources, check compression artifacts, inspect scans or image exports, compare edited or upscaled versions, and catch subtle changes in color, sharpness, cropping, scaling, or encoding.

Screenshot

Features

• Open images using drag-and-drop, the file picker, command-line arguments, or a file manager’s Open With action
• Compare two or more images side by side, in a stacked view, or in a grid layout
• Synchronize zoom and pan across all images
• Use relative synchronization to keep the same proportional region visible across different resolutions
• Lock individual images to zoom and pan them independently
• Flip between images in the same position using stacked view
• Generate and export luminance SSIM heatmaps to highlight structural differences between two images
• Switch between color-managed rendering using embedded profiles and raw rendering
• Copy image paths, open containing folders, and close files from image context menus

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
o	Open images
f	Toggle best fit / 100% zoom
v	Toggle stacked view
Arrow keys	Cycle images in stacked view
Enter	Focus the active image
h	Toggle relative sync for different resolutions
l	Toggle synchronization lock for the active image
r	Toggle color-profile / raw rendering
b	Build heatmap
Ctrl+W	Close active image
Ctrl+Left / Ctrl+Right	Move image left / right

Install

GitHub Releases

Download release builds from the GitHub Releases page.

Available release builds:

• Linux DEB package for Debian and Ubuntu-based distributions
• Linux RPM package for Fedora and RPM-based distributions
• Linux portable zip
• Windows x86_64 portable zip
• Source tarball

Flathub

flatpak install flathub io.github.gimletlove.imagecompare

Arch Linux AUR

yay -S imagecompare

Windows

Download imagecompare-<version>-windows-x86_64.zip from GitHub Releases, extract it, and run imagecompare.exe.

The Windows build is distributed as a portable zip with its runtime dependencies bundled.

Build from Source

Local source builds are intended for Linux. Windows packages are produced by the GitHub Actions release workflow.

Build requirements:

• C++20 compiler
• CMake 3.21+
• Qt 6

Build and run:

cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build
./build/imagecompare

Acknowledgements

Luminance SSIM heatmaps use the vendored rmgr::ssim library by Romain Bailly.

Project Links

• GitHub Releases: https://github.com/gimletlove/imagecompare/releases
• Flathub: https://flathub.org/apps/details/io.github.gimletlove.imagecompare
• Arch Linux AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/imagecompare-bin