diff --git a/asciidoc/release-notes.adoc b/asciidoc/release-notes.adoc
index f5006e0e8..c053b31e7 100644
--- a/asciidoc/release-notes.adoc
+++ b/asciidoc/release-notes.adoc
@@ -52,6 +52,8 @@ Note, if you have resolved dependencies with version of Ivy prior to 2.6.1, you
 - DOCUMENTATION: bla bla bla (jira:IVY-1234[]) (Thanks to Jane Doe)
 ////
 
+- IMPROVEMENT: switched to using XMLUnit 2.x in tests (jira:IVY-1670[])
+
 == Committers and Contributors
 
 Here is the list of people who have contributed source code and documentation up to this release. Many thanks to all of them, and also to the whole IvyDE community contributing ideas and feedback, and promoting the use of Apache Ivy !
diff --git a/ivy.xml b/ivy.xml
index 531d7ffaf..a93a6d34e 100644
--- a/ivy.xml
+++ b/ivy.xml
@@ -75,7 +75,8 @@
         <dependency org="org.apache.ant" name="ant-junit" rev="${apache-ant.version}" conf="test" transitive="false"/>
         <dependency org="org.apache.ant" name="ant-junit4" rev="${apache-ant.version}" conf="test" transitive="false"/>
         <dependency org="ant-contrib" name="ant-contrib" rev="${ant-contrib.version}" conf="test" transitive="false"/>
-        <dependency org="xmlunit" name="xmlunit" rev="${xmlunit.version}" conf="test" transitive="false"/>
+        <dependency org="org.xmlunit" name="xmlunit-core" rev="${xmlunit.version}" conf="test" transitive="false"/>
+        <dependency org="org.xmlunit" name="xmlunit-matchers" rev="${xmlunit.version}" conf="test" transitive="false"/>
 
         <!-- Global excludes -->
         <exclude org="junit" module="junit" conf="core,default,httpclient,oro,vfs,sftp,pack200,standalone,ant"/>
diff --git a/test/java/org/apache/ivy/plugins/parser/xml/XmlModuleDescriptorWriterTest.java b/test/java/org/apache/ivy/plugins/parser/xml/XmlModuleDescriptorWriterTest.java
index 74d8a8698..87fae12c3 100644
--- a/test/java/org/apache/ivy/plugins/parser/xml/XmlModuleDescriptorWriterTest.java
+++ b/test/java/org/apache/ivy/plugins/parser/xml/XmlModuleDescriptorWriterTest.java
@@ -38,12 +38,15 @@
 import org.junit.After;
 import org.junit.Before;
 import org.junit.Test;
+import org.xmlunit.diff.DefaultNodeMatcher;
 
 import static org.apache.ivy.core.module.descriptor.Configuration.Visibility.PUBLIC;
-import static org.custommonkey.xmlunit.XMLAssert.assertXMLEqual;
+import static org.hamcrest.MatcherAssert.assertThat;
 import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals;
 import static org.junit.Assert.assertFalse;
 import static org.junit.Assert.assertTrue;
+import static org.xmlunit.matchers.CompareMatcher.isSimilarTo;
+import static org.xmlunit.diff.ElementSelectors.byNameAndAllAttributes;
 
 public class XmlModuleDescriptorWriterTest {
     private static String LICENSE;
@@ -162,14 +165,15 @@ public void testExtraInfosFromMaven() throws Exception {
         XmlModuleDescriptorWriter.write(md, LICENSE, dest);
 
         assertTrue(dest.exists());
-        String wrote = FileUtil.readEntirely(new BufferedReader(new FileReader(dest)))
-                .replaceAll("\r\n", "\n").replace('\r', '\n');
+        String wrote = FileUtil.readEntirely(new BufferedReader(new FileReader(dest)));
         wrote = wrote.replaceFirst("publication=\"([0-9])*\"", "publication=\"20140429153143\"");
         System.out.println(wrote);
 
-        String expected = readEntirely("test-write-extrainfo-from-maven.xml").replaceAll("\r\n",
-            "\n").replace('\r', '\n');
-        assertXMLEqual(expected, wrote);
+        String expected = readEntirely("test-write-extrainfo-from-maven.xml");
+        assertThat(wrote,
+                   isSimilarTo(expected)
+                   .withNodeMatcher(new DefaultNodeMatcher(byNameAndAllAttributes))
+                   .ignoreWhitespace());
     }
 
     @Test
diff --git a/version.properties b/version.properties
index 65341c01f..1268790be 100644
--- a/version.properties
+++ b/version.properties
@@ -43,4 +43,4 @@ jsch.agentproxy.version=0.0.9
 jsch.version=0.1.55
 junit.version=4.13.2
 oro.version=2.0.8
-xmlunit.version=1.6
+xmlunit.version=2.12.0