Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Git VS Apache Subversion

Compare Git VS Apache Subversion and see what are their differences

Git logo Git

Git is a free and open source version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. It is easy to learn and lightweight with lighting fast performance that outclasses competitors.

Apache Subversion logo Apache Subversion

Mirror of Apache Subversion. Contribute to apache/subversion development by creating an account on GitHub.
  • Git Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-01
  • Apache Subversion Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-27

Git features and specs

  • Distributed Version Control
    Git is a distributed version control system, meaning every user has a complete local copy of the repository. This offers better redundancy and allows users to work offline.
  • Branching and Merging
    Git makes branching and merging processes simple and efficient, allowing users to try out new features, fix bugs, or experiment without affecting the main codebase.
  • Speed
    Git operates very quickly because most of its operations are performed locally, making it very swift in comparison to some other version control systems.
  • Flexibility
    It is highly flexible, supporting various workflows including centralized, feature-branch, Gitflow, and forking workflows.
  • Open Source
    Being an open-source tool, it's free to use, and its source code can be reviewed and modified by anyone as needed.
  • Widely Supported
    Git is widely supported by many integrated development environments (IDEs) and collaborative platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket.
  • Security
    Git uses a mechanism of checksums to ensure data integrity, making it very resilient against changes, corruption, and unauthorized alterations.

Possible disadvantages of Git

  • Complexity for Beginners
    New users may find Git's command-line interface and concepts like branching, merging, and rebasing to be complex and difficult to learn.
  • Overhead of Local Repositories
    Since every user maintains a full copy of the repository, this could lead to higher local storage requirements compared to some other version control systems.
  • Learning Curve
    The initial setup and understanding of Git workflows can be challenging, and it requires users to spend some time learning the tool.
  • Potential for Misuse
    Powerful features like force push and interactive rebase can lead to significant issues if misused, including loss of history and data.
  • Merge Conflicts
    While merging is generally easy, complicated projects with many contributors might experience frequent and difficult-to-resolve merge conflicts.
  • Tool Fragmentation
    There are multiple tools and additional software built around Git (GUI clients, integrations, etc.), which can be overwhelming and fragmented for some users.

Apache Subversion features and specs

  • Centralized Version Control
    Apache Subversion (SVN) uses a centralized repository model, which makes it easy to manage and control all project files in one place. All history and versions are stored on the server, making backup and repository management straightforward.
  • Atomic Commits
    Subversion ensures that commits are atomic operations. This means that either all changes in a commit are applied, or none are, helping to maintain the integrity of the repository.
  • Comprehensive Authorization
    SVN offers fine-grained authentication and authorization models. It can integrate with various authentication systems and allows granular access control on a per-directory and per-user basis.
  • Binary File Handling
    SVN handles binary files more efficiently compared to some other version control systems, reducing the size of repositories and improving performance when large files are committed.
  • Mature and Stable
    SVN has been around since 2000 and is widely used in enterprise settings. It is stable, well-documented, and has a vast community for support.

Possible disadvantages of Apache Subversion

  • Limited Branching and Merging
    SVN’s branching and merging capabilities are more cumbersome compared to distributed version control systems (DVCS) like Git. Merging in SVN can be complex and time-consuming.
  • Single Point of Failure
    As a centralized version control system, the SVN repository server becomes a single point of failure. If the server goes down, no commits can be made until it is back up.
  • Performance Overhead
    Working with a remote central repository can introduce latency and performance overhead, especially with large projects and many users.
  • Less support for Offline Work
    SVN generally requires network access to the central repository for most operations. This makes it less flexible for developers needing to work offline, compared to DVCS where local copies are complete repositories.
  • Complex Repository Management
    Managing SVN repositories, particularly for large projects, can become complex and may require significant administrative effort to handle repositories, backups, and access controls.

Git videos

Full Git Tutorial (Part 6) - Pull Requests & Code Reviews

More videos:

  • Review - Learn Git In 15 Minutes
  • Tutorial - How to Review a Pull Request in GitHub the RIGHT Way

Apache Subversion videos

Setting Up Apache Subversion on Windows

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Git and Apache Subversion)
Git
87 87%
13% 13
Code Collaboration
83 83%
17% 17
Software Development
100 100%
0% 0
Version Control
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Git and Apache Subversion

Git Reviews

Boost Development Productivity With These 14 Git Clients for Windows and Mac
GitUp is the open-source solution for a git repository and IDE interaction on macOS computers. The tool is based on a generic Git toolkit known as the GitUpKit. This toolkit is reusable, and hence you can build your own Git app based on GitUpKit.
Source: geekflare.com

Apache Subversion Reviews

We have no reviews of Apache Subversion yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Git seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 273 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Git mentions (273)

  • Most Effective Approaches for Debugging Applications
    When a bug disrupts a production environment, reverting to a known working state can minimize user impact and provide a stable baseline for investigation. Version control systems like Git or GitHub enable precise rollbacks, preserving the ability to analyze faulty code. A 2022 JetBrains survey found that 92% of developers use Git, with 65% citing rollbacks as a key benefit for debugging. - Source: dev.to / 7 days ago
  • Building multi-agent systems with LangGraph or CrewAI
    Git to clone repositories and manage your project. - Source: dev.to / 25 days ago
  • Git Basics and Version Control
    You can download and install Git from the official website: https://git-scm.com. - Source: dev.to / 26 days ago
  • Automatically generate changelogs with git
    One of the rather tedious tasks of a developer is to generate changelogs. I cannot imagine that anybody enjoys going through the project history and try to reverse engineer what has happened since the last release. But the good news is that with a bit of discipline it is quite straightforward to generate those changelogs from your version control history. The examples in this blog post will use git, but I guess... - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Set Up An E-Commerce Backend With Medusa In Just A Few Minutes
    Git: Git is required to clone repositories and manage your project versioning. Install Git from git-scm.com. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
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Apache Subversion mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Apache Subversion yet. Tracking of Apache Subversion recommendations started around May 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Git and Apache Subversion, you can also consider the following products

GitHub - Originally founded as a project to simplify sharing code, GitHub has grown into an application used by over a million people to store over two million code repositories, making GitHub the largest code host in the world.

Mercurial SCM - Mercurial is a free, distributed source control management tool.

Atlassian Bitbucket Server - Atlassian Bitbucket Server is a scalable collaborative Git solution.

VS Code - Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft

GitHub Desktop - GitHub Desktop is a seamless way to contribute to projects on GitHub and GitHub Enterprise.

GitKraken - The intuitive, fast, and beautiful cross-platform Git client.