If you're not interested in the details that git diff
outputs you can just run git cherry
which will output a list of commits your remote tracking branch has ahead of your local branch.
For example:
git fetch origin
git cherry master origin/master
Will output something like :
+ 2642039b1a4c4d4345a0d02f79ccc3690e19d9b1
+ a4870f9fbde61d2d657e97b72b61f46d1fd265a9
Indicates that there are two commits in my remote tracking branch that haven't been merged into my local branch.
This also works the other way :
git cherry origin/master master
Will show you a list of local commits that you haven't pushed to your remote repository yet.