flpdiff

See what changed between two FL Studio .flp saves — channel by channel, note by note.

Every producer has this folder:

track_1.flp
track_2.flp
track_3_final.flp
track_3_final_2.flp
track_3_final_2_FINAL_real.flp

You saved them during a long session. A week later you open the latest one, something feels off, and you want to go back — but back to what? Which version had the bassline that worked? Which had the EQ move that opened the mix? The files are binary. Opening two FL Studio instances and squinting at 40 channels and 30 patterns isn't happening. So you guess, start over, or live with the wrong version.

Or a collaborator sends back the project with "added some drums, moved the breakdown." Git just says Binary files differ.

flpdiff reads both files and tells you, in plain English, exactly what's different.

$ flpdiff v1.flp v2.flp
FLP Diff: v1.flp vs v2.flp
──────────────────────────
Summary: 4 changes (2 channels, 1 mixer, 1 arrangements, 3 tracks)

Channels:
  ~ Channel sampler 'Kick' modified (1 changes)
      ~ Channel volume 78% → 100%
  + Added channel sampler 'Dub Vocal' (sample: vocals/dubmix.mp3)

Mixer:
  ~ Insert 8 (unnamed) modified (3 changes)
      + Insert renamed from unset to 'Dub Vocal'
      ~ Insert volume 100% → 71%
      + Insert color: unset → #5f7581

Arrangements:
  ~ Arrangement 'main' modified (0 arrangement changes, 3 track changes)
      ~ Track 'vocals' modified (10 changes)
          + 9 clips of 'Dub Vocal' added (length 5.854 beats, beats 62 … 206)

No FL Studio install needed. No Python. Just a small TypeScript binary that knows the FLP format.

Try it in 10 seconds

bunx flpdiff A.flp B.flp

Install

Standalone binary — no runtime, no dependencies. Drop it on your $PATH:

# macOS (Apple Silicon)
curl -L https://github.com/dawhubapp/flpdiff/releases/latest/download/flpdiff-darwin-arm64 -o /usr/local/bin/flpdiff
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/flpdiff

# macOS (Intel) → flpdiff-darwin-x64
# Linux (x64)   → flpdiff-linux-x64
# Linux (arm64) → flpdiff-linux-arm64
# Windows (x64) → flpdiff-windows-x64.exe

Or via Bun:

bun install -g flpdiff

Two ways to use it

1. Side-by-side compare

flpdiff old.flp new.flp

Exit codes are CI-friendly: 0 if the projects are identical, 1 if there are differences, 2 on parse or I/O errors. Pipe the output, drop it in a build step, fail a PR check on unintended plugin swaps — the usual.

2. As a git diff driver

You can save your FL Studio projects to Git and have a version control.

However, as .flp files are binary files, you will seeg Binary files differ on every .flp change.

flpdiff in one command turns FLPs into first-class diffable content in any repo:

$ flpdiff git-setup
flpdiff git-setup (OK): scope=local, mode=command
  attributes: /path/to/repo/.gitattributes (updated)
  executable: /usr/local/bin/flpdiff
  $ git config --local diff.flp.command /usr/local/bin/flpdiff git-driver
  $ git config --local --unset diff.flp.textconv
  verify with: flpdiff git-verify
  try: git diff <changed.flp>

Once configured, every git command that normally shows diffs picks up the FLP semantic diff:

git diff                    # after editing + saving an FLP in FL Studio
git diff HEAD~1 HEAD        # what changed in the last commit
git log -p my_track.flp     # full history
git show <sha>              # what a specific commit did

Add --global to wire it up for every repo on your machine, or --lfs if your project tree lives in Git LFS.

What it picks up

Concrete, musician-friendly descriptions — not opcode dumps:

• Project basics — tempo, title, artists, genre, sample paths.
• Channels — added, removed, renamed; volume / pan / colour tweaks; plugin swaps with vendor info; automation-curve edits rendered in beats and bars.
• Patterns — rename, length, loop status, colour; per-note changes labelled musically ("C5 on channel 1 moved 1/2 beat later").
• Mixer — per-insert rename / colour / volume / pan / stereo separation / routing / enable / lock; per-slot plugin swaps with position hints.
• Arrangements — track renames; clip add / remove / move / modify in musical units; smart collapsing when you nudged a run of similar clips ("9 clips of 'Dub Vocal' added") instead of nine near-identical lines.

Every change carries a pre-rendered human label; the text and JSON outputs render from the same DiffResult, so scripts and humans agree on what happened.

Inspect a single project

$ flpdiff info my_track.flp
File: my_track.flp
FL Studio 25.2.4.4960 | 145.0 BPM | 4/4 | PPQ 96
Title: Big Room Anthem
Artists: Roman Pronskiy
Channels: 12 (2 automations, 6 samplers, 4 instruments)
Patterns: 8
Mixer: 18 active inserts, 14 effect slots
Arrangements: 1 (500 tracks, 67 clips)
Plugins: Serum, Fruity Limiter, Fruity Parametric EQ 2, Sytrus, … and 4 more
Samples: 909 Kick.wav, Hat_closed.wav, vocal_chop_01.wav, … and 12 more

flpdiff info <file> --format json emits the full project structure for scripting. --format canonical produces a stable, line-oriented dump used by the git textconv integration.

FL Studio compatibility

Tested across every FL major from 9 through 25, against 85 real-world projects (vocals, chord progressions, drum chops, multi-bar arrangements, VST-heavy and native-only mixes):

FL version	Parser	info --format json
FL 9 – 24	100%	100%
FL 25 (current)	100%	100%

flpdiff and dawhub

flpdiff is the free, MIT-licensed CLI. If you'd rather drag two .flp files onto a web page, share a link with a collaborator, or keep version history in the cloud — that's dawhub, a hosted product built on top of flpdiff. Same diff engine, browser UI, plus collaboration. The CLI here stays free forever.

How it works

flpdiff ships a clean-room FLP parser written from first principles against direct byte inspection of FL Studio saves and the publicly documented event-stream format. No code copied from existing FLP libraries; format facts cross-checked only where legally distinct from code reuse. The result is a small, fast, dependency-free parser with no GPL lineage.

Built on Bun + typed-binary + TypeScript 6.

Full CLI reference

flpdiff [--verbose] [--color|--no-color] <A.flp> <B.flp>
                                            Semantic diff of two FLPs
flpdiff info <file.flp> [--format F]        Inspect a single FLP
                                              F ∈ text (default) | json | canonical
flpdiff git-setup [--global] [--textconv] [--lfs]
                                            Configure git to diff .flp files semantically
flpdiff git-verify                          Diagnose the current repo's flpdiff git setup
flpdiff git-driver <args>                   Internal: git external-diff entry
flpdiff --help | --version

Colour auto-enables on TTY stdout and disables when piped or when NO_COLOR is set. Use --color / --no-color to force either way. Only top-level + / - / ~ markers get painted; sub-bullets and headers stay neutral so long diffs don't read like jelly-bean spew.

To compare two FLPs that aren't tracked in any repo, use git diff --no-index v1.flp v2.flp — or just flpdiff v1.flp v2.flp.

Development

git clone https://github.com/dawhubapp/flpdiff
cd flpdiff
bun install
bun test

See docs/DEVELOPMENT.md for the full development story — phase tracking, parity harnesses, format-spec contributions, opcode catalog, and the clean-room boundary policy.

Acknowledgments

Huge thanks to PyFLP by @demberto — an open-source FL Studio project parser, written in Python. PyFLP is a thorough, well-documented community effort and a real labour of love. flpdiff is an independent clean-room TypeScript implementation, but PyFLP set the bar and helped to make it possible.

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

For bug reports: include the FL Studio version that saved the file (flpdiff info <file> shows it), the JSON output of flpdiff info <file> --format json, and — if you can share — the .flp itself or a minimal repro.

License

MIT. Copyright © 2026 Roman Pronskiy.