Wave diffraction is a very important phenomenon in marine engineering and several models have been developed for its simulation. The new version of SWAN, a third generation spectral model, includes an approximation to wave diffraction. The approximation is based on the mildslope equation for refraction and diffraction, omitting phase information. The objective this paper is to evaluate the performance of a numerical model. To do so, the propagation of unidirectional and multi-directional irregular waves through a breakwater gap is simulated to validate the model. It is desired to evaluate the dependence of the diffraction coefficient (Kd) and incident wave parameters. Wave parameters are directional spreading parameter (S) and peak enhancement factor (g) of JONSWAP wave spectrum and direction of incident wave. The model is also tested using two different lengths of breakwater gap. A laboratory data set is used for the evaluation of SWAN. The comparison shows a good agreement between the model outputs and the experimental data. The average scatter index is about 5% for Kd and The average of Bias parameter is about -0.05. This shows that the model, in most cases slightly under estimates the diffracted wave height. It is also found that the wave directional spreading parameter is more effective compared to the peak enhancement factor on the wave diffraction. The calculated results indicate that, this numerical model is applicable to the real engineering problems.