diff --git a/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-config.txt b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-config.txt
index 9365b75fd04f..49ab79d662fa 100644
--- a/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-config.txt
+++ b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-config.txt
@@ -498,6 +498,13 @@ record.*::
 		But if this option is 'no-cache', it will not update the build-id cache.
 		'skip' skips post-processing and does not update the cache.
 
+diff.*::
+	diff.order::
+		This option sets the number of columns to sort the result.
+		The default is 0, which means sorting by baseline.
+		Setting it to 1 will sort the result by delta (or other
+		compute method selected).
+
 SEE ALSO
 --------
 linkperf:perf[1]
diff --git a/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-diff.txt b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-diff.txt
index af80284cd2f6..7c014c9934bb 100644
--- a/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-diff.txt
+++ b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-diff.txt
@@ -99,7 +99,11 @@ OPTIONS
 
 -o::
 --order::
-       Specify compute sorting column number.
+       Specify compute sorting column number.  0 means sorting by baseline
+       overhead (default) and 1 means sorting by computed value of column 1
+       (data from the first file other base baseline).  Values more than 1
+       can be used only if enough data files are provided.
+       The default value can be set using the diff.order config option.
 
 --percentage::
 	Determine how to display the overhead percentage of filtered entries.
diff --git a/tools/perf/builtin-diff.c b/tools/perf/builtin-diff.c
index 781c9e60bd21..181ff996e039 100644
--- a/tools/perf/builtin-diff.c
+++ b/tools/perf/builtin-diff.c
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@
 #include "util/symbol.h"
 #include "util/util.h"
 #include "util/data.h"
+#include "util/config.h"
 
 #include <stdlib.h>
 #include <math.h>
@@ -1291,6 +1292,17 @@ static int data_init(int argc, const char **argv)
 	return 0;
 }
 
+static int diff__config(const char *var, const char *value,
+			void *cb __maybe_unused)
+{
+	if (!strcmp(var, "diff.order")) {
+		sort_compute = perf_config_int(var, value);
+		return 0;
+	}
+
+	return 0;
+}
+
 int cmd_diff(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix __maybe_unused)
 {
 	int ret = hists__init();
@@ -1298,6 +1310,8 @@ int cmd_diff(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix __maybe_unused)
 	if (ret < 0)
 		return ret;
 
+	perf_config(diff__config, NULL);
+
 	argc = parse_options(argc, argv, options, diff_usage, 0);
 
 	if (symbol__init(NULL) < 0)