The paper examines and debates controversial issues that characterize the logic of comparison in social anthropology and sociology. The first part of the article illustrates the dynamics of comparison in social anthropology from the classics to the present day. The second part of the paper highlights differences and similarities in how sociologists and anthropologists discuss and use comparison in their research. For sociologists, a comparison is primarily a variety of comparative perspectives that characterize a tool for exploring causal relations, from testing explanatory models to grasping the unique history of different societies. The article points out the contradiction between the comparative perspective inherent in social anthropology as a science about the “Other” and the marginal position of comparative research in contemporary anthropological discipline. The proposed resolution to this contradiction is the concept of “comparative social anthropology”, defined by analogy with the concept of “comparative sociology” developed by the authors. In conclusion, the authors present three areas of comparative sociological research that could be helpful to anthropologists: the extended case method, institutional ethnography, and theory-building based on case comparison.