Compare to vs. Compare with

When should we use with and to, with compare ? This is the question of many learnes which I try to clarify it :
Compare to and Compare with have similarities and differences with each other. They are interchangeable when they are similar.

Compare to means that you are stressing something is similar or of equal quality to something else.

- Some commentators compared his work to that of James Joyce.
- People have compared me to Elizabeth Taylor.
- I can only compare the experience to falling in love.

Compare with indicates that you are examining both similarities and differences :

- The teacher compared John's marks with other students to see how much he has made a progress.
- If you compare her with other children in the class, she is more clever.
- The flowers here do not compare with those at home.

When you want to make a comparison between two or more things, both to or with are possible:

- He thinks he's a better driver compared with/to his brother.
- This matter really isn't very important if you compare it to/with the other problems we've got to deal with.
- The costs of living have decreased compared with last year.

Note that :
1- When compare comes with can not or do not, it just takes with.In this use,it means that no comparison is possible because they are so different:

- Your computer just can't compare with mine.(Your computer is not as good as my computer.
- The flowers here do not compare with those at home.

2- When compare comes with favorably or unfavorably, it takes with indicating that something is better or worse than another:

- The hotel certainly compared favorably with the one we stayed in last year.
- The safety of the roads in the country compares unfavorably with my country's.

3- you must use compare in the past tense when describing similarities or differences between two or more things :

- He is hard worker comparing with his brother.(incorrect)
- He is hard worker compared with his brother.(correct)

References:

- Collins Cobuild- Lexicon dictionary
- Longman Advanced American dictionary
- Cambridge Advanced Learners's Dictionary