Byte-level differencing is the core technology behind RTPatch's update
solution. It reduces the size of updates by not only detecting which files
have changed from one revision to the next, but also what bytes within each
file have changed. By distributing only the changed bytes, RTPatch's
byte-level differencing reduces the size of most updates by 90-99%.
At the most basic level, byte-level differencing enables you to update files
with only the changes (as shown in the diagram below). Add to that over 100
features,
like multi-version updates with a single patch, and the result is a
fully-featured developer's tool that has been responsible for over a billion
patch applications over the past two decades.
Originally released in 1991, RTPatch was the first commercial software
updating technology of its kind. Today RTPatch is the gold standard for
creating and distributing updates for both in-house as well as massively
distributed software and data and is behind-the-scenes of over a million
updates applied every day. RTPatch is available for:
