SemVer Compare

📖 Tool Introduction

SemVer Compare is an online version parsing and sorting tool built for developers, and it follows the Semantic Versioning 2.0.0 specification exactly. It breaks a version string such as 1.2.3, 2.0.0-rc.1 or 1.10.0-beta.1+build.5 into its five meaningful parts: the major number, the minor number, the patch number, the prerelease identifier and the build metadata. With that decomposition it decides precisely which of two versions comes first in release order. The tool also handles bulk sorting: paste the scattered version tags from a project, one per line, and it arranges them in ascending or descending order in a single click while automatically skipping any line whose format it cannot recognize. For cases that people often get wrong by comparing strings, such as 1.10.0 versus 1.9.0, the tool compares the numbers by their true numeric value, so 1.10.0 is correctly placed after 1.9.0 instead of being lexicographically shuffled ahead of it. The comparison result is shown as a bold badge that states which side is greater, and below it a row-by-row breakdown lists the major, minor, patch and prerelease parts side by side, so every decision is transparent and easy to audit. All computation happens entirely inside your browser, no network request is ever made, which makes the tool suitable for offline machines and for handling sensitive release data that must never leave the device. Whether you are curating a changelog, preparing a release matrix or checking which tag is newer, the result is instant and deterministic. The deterministic nature matters because it means two engineers looking at the same list will always see the same order, which removes a whole class of arguments about whether a candidate version should block a release. Prerelease handling is especially useful when comparing release candidates against one another, since the tool understands that alpha versions rank below beta versions, which in turn rank below release candidates.

✨ Key Features

• Spec parsing: fully supports major.minor.patch together with prerelease and build suffixes
• Exact comparison: applies SemVer precedence to decide which version comes first
• Per-part breakdown: major, minor, patch and prerelease are compared row by row
• Bulk sorting: sort a version list ascending or descending, comparing numbers numerically
• Fault tolerant: lines that cannot be parsed are skipped and counted for you
• Runs locally: pure front-end math, works offline, zero uploads

📝 How to Use

1. Type the two versions you want to compare into the Version A and Version B fields
2. Click Compare & Sort to read the top badge and the row-by-row breakdown
3. Paste one version per line into the list area for bulk sorting
4. Switch between ascending and descending order with the direction buttons
5. Copy or download the sorted list to reuse it in your notes or scripts

⚠️ Notes

• Format required: a version must contain three numeric segments, otherwise it is treated as invalid and skipped
• Prerelease order: a prerelease version ranks below the normal release with the same numbers
• Build metadata: the build number after the plus sign does not affect precedence
• Numeric order: 1.10.0 is greater than 1.9.0, compared by value rather than dictionary order
• Bad input: empty or malformed input produces a friendly message instead of an error