Best way/tool to compare two SSIS packages [closed]

Question

One of the biggest pain of SSIS packages, is not being able to track the changes between versions. Even beyond compare looks nervous when it comes to comparing two SSIS (DTSX) packages.

Guys, what is your opinion? How do you manage the versions and identify the change per version? If you are asked to compare two SSIS packages, which tool do you use?

Answer 1

You can check out ApexSQL Diff and its SSIS compare feature. It compares package elements and properties, and all differences can be reviewed in the Difference view panel which provides XML review of the package.

Also, this article might be useful: How to compare SSIS packages and export difference results

Answer 2

I've evaluated several tools:

• BIDS Helper - rebranded "BI Developer Extensions"
• BI Developer Extensions for Visual Studio 2015/2017 - has a "Smart Diff" feature- see https://bideveloperextensions.github.io
• PragmaticWorks SSIS Compare plug-in - this doesn't support three-way merge, fat scrollbars with previews of where differences are (which is a standard diff feature these days), and doesn't do anything fancy like allow you to jump focus in SSIS to the graphic visualization of the feature.
• BeyondCompare 3 with XML tidy file format and some regular expressions to ignore version differences, as well as other non-essential differences that have no impact on comparing "do these packages execute the same way, or differently?" http://justgeeks.blogspot.com/2008/01/using-beyond-compare-to-compare-2-ssis.html - see the first comment in the blog post for how to hide nonessential differences.

BeyondCompare 3 wins for me. If you find additional tools, I will be interested to hear more.