Atlassian Bitbucket vs. Git vs. Perforce P4

As a team we need to push code into the repo on daily basis, Bitbucket has proven that is a reliable and secure server to save and get the code available in no time. The administration part is really easy and there's an extra tool for every developer profile either if you want to use the console or a GUI like Sourcetree.

Incentivized

GIT is good to be used for faster and high availability operations during code release cycle. Git provides a complete replica of the repository on the developer's local system which is why every developer will have complete repository available for quick access on his system and they can merge the specific branches that they have worked on back to the centralized repository. The limitations with GIT are seen when checking in large files.

Incentivized

While Perforce Helix is the best version control software out there, it can also be used to track your documentation, training videos and materials, and requirements. If you have strict compliance requirements, it can be used to ensure that those requirements are satisfied. Perforce Helix is incredibly flexible and can meet the needs of individual users as well as companies with thousands of users.

Incentivized

• Very easy to integrate with other DevOps tools like Jenkins and with project/workflow management tools like JIRA.
• Very efficient in managing security and compliance standards for code, especially during pull requests, merge requests, branching, etc.
• Very robust in performance, especially the cloud and datacenter versions hardly hit any performance issues and supports more than 2000+ developers in my company.

Incentivized

• Ability to create branches off current releases to modify code that can be tested in a separate environment.
• Each developer had their own local copy of branches so it minimizes mistakes being made.
• Has a user-friendly UI called Git Gui that users can use if they do not like using the command line.
• Conflicts are displayed nicely so that developers can resolve with ease.

Incentivized

• The branching mechanisms in Perforce allow for an enormous codebase to be duplicated into release versions weekly with little impact upon things such as the speed of queries against the version control.
• Action triggers permit such things as automated builds of software versions, dynamic messaging when issues are identified either within or prior to a build process, and much more.
• Locking provides the ability to prevent modifications of stable, tested versions in order to ensure validity when they are released.

Incentivized

• The code management UI is a bit rough around the edges and difficult to work with.
• BitBucket does not have the same simplified PR management tools as other competitors.
• It's not as easy to integrate 3rd party apps as other competitors.

Incentivized

• There can be quite a number of commands once you get to the advanced features and functionality of Git. Takes time to master.
• Doesn't handle static assets (ie: videos, images, etc.) well. Although in the recent years, new functionality has been introduced to address this.
• Many different GUIs, many people (including myself) opt to just use the command-line.

Incentivized

• Perforce tends to feel backwards in how it approaches certain tasks, like branching and integrating - even once you figure out how it wants you to perform these tasks, you will likely forget when it comes around to the next time you need to do them again.
• Perforce has a higher price tag, comparatively.
• Perforce make some tasks very easy, and yet other tasks very difficult - it doesn't always seem to have found its target user's proficiency.

Incentivized

All products have room for improvement. The system improves over time with better and better integrations and I look forward to even more features without paying extra! The system has increased transparency across my organization and with this transparency comes increased throughput on projects. I don't think I can go back to any other system and we are definitely married to this product.

Incentivized

Git has met all standards for a source control tool and even exceeded those standards. Git is so integrated with our work that I can't imagine a day without it.

Incentivized

We are fully committed to our use of Perforce. It works well within our organization and our desire to share our code base with our customers. Their support staff are responsive, inquisitive, and eager to improve their software. I feel like we have a direct line to their design/feature team as they often solicit our feedback.

Incentivized

The architecture of Bitbucket makes it more easily scalable than other source code management repositories. Also, administration and maintaining the instance is very easy. It integrates with JIRA and other CI/CD applications which makes it more useful to reduce the efforts. It supports multiple plugins and those bring a lot of extra functionality. It increases the overall efficiency and usefulness of Bitbucket.

Incentivized

Git is easy to use most of the time. You mostly use a few commands like commiting, fetch/pull, and push which will get you by for most of time.

Incentivized

With Perforce Helix, you can use it via the command line, via P4V, or any of the other APIs included with the product. It is extremely easy for new users to get up and running. Users of Perforce Helix only have to pull in the files of interest to them. Also, Perforce is very easy to script and integrate into your CI/CD pipeline. Streams allows you to have pinpoint control of your workflow, and P4Search is the absolute best--I wish Perforce (the company) would talk more about this. It is absolutely fabulous!

Incentivized

In our large environment, Perforce is rarely "down". We have regular maintenance windows and from time to time Perforce can feel a little slow, but its always available. Tech support has always worked with our engineers and IT department to make sure that any real performance or stability issues are addressed quickly.

Incentivized

The customer support provided by Atlassian (Bitbucket's parent company that also makes Jira, Confluence, etc.) is very helpful. They seem to be very concerned about any issues reported with their products and even just questions about functionality. They are constantly improving the products with new features in nearly every release. Plus they have a plethora of online documentation to reference.

Incentivized

I am not sure what the official Git support channels are like as I have never needed to use any official support. Because Git is so popular among all developers now, it is pretty easy to find the answer to almost any Git question with a quick Google search. I've never had trouble finding what I'm looking for.

Incentivized

I had two representatives from Perforce contact me after downloading it but never responded when I had questions. I also had a difficult time finding good training material for getting started. There is a lot of available support material when running into issues, though, because of how many large companies use it.

Incentivized

It's easy to set up and get going.

Incentivized

This rating is related to setting up an environment from an existing Perforce repository. Initial setup of Perforce as the repository for the company was done by a separate team long prior to my inception.

Incentivized

For the features we were looking at, Bitbucket, GitHub and GitLab were all at par and were in a similar price range. We found that GitHub was the most full featured should we need to scale very quickly. GitLab was at par with GitHub for our future needs, but GitHub was a more familiar tool compared to GitLab. Bitbucket won out because of its close integration with Jira and being in the Atlassian family. It was also cheaper than GitHub. As we started with Jira, Bitbucket addition became a natural next step for us. We really liked Bitbucket and stayed with it but we do know we have great options in the form of GitHub and GitLab should we need to scale fast.

Incentivized

I've used both Apache Subversion & Git over the years and have maintained my allegiance to Git. Git is not objectively better than Subversion. It's different.
The key difference is that it is decentralized. With Subversion, you have a problem here: The SVN Repository may be in a location you can't reach (behind a VPN, intranet - etc), you cannot commit. If you want to make a copy of your code, you have to literally copy/paste it. With Git, you do not have this problem. Your local copy is a repository, and you can commit to it and get all benefits of source control. When you regain connectivity to the main repository, you can commit against it. Another thing for consideration is that Git tracks content rather than files. Branches are lightweight and merging is easy, and I mean really easy.
It's distributed, basically every repository is a branch. It's much easier to develop concurrently and collaboratively than with Subversion, in my opinion. It also makes offline development possible. It doesn't impose any workflow, as seen on the above linked website, there are many workflows possible with Git. A Subversion-style workflow is easily mimicked.

Incentivized

Git is great, I love Git. But it's not great for dealing with binary assets, even when using Git LFS. Locking is not as simple as on perforce. Git presents some problems on using for non-tech people it can get overwhelming and tech people have to come by and help.

Incentivized

• It's allowed for a lot of automation in terms of development workflows. It lets us pursue CI/CD approaches and get releases out faster
• It has let us get our infrastructure configuration into VCS, which further improves our automation abilities.
• It has aided in keeping track of changes, and allows us to keep workflows organized so we can track the status of development

Incentivized

• Git has saved our organization countless hours having to manually trace code to a breaking change or manage conflicting changes. It has no equal when it comes to scalability or manageability.
• Git has allowed our engineering team to build code reviews into its workflow by preventing a developer from approving or merging in their own code; instead, all proposed changes are reviewed by another engineer to assess the impact of the code and whether or not it should be merged in first. This greatly reduces the likelihood of breaking changes getting into production.
• Git has at times created some confusion among developers about what to do if they accidentally commit a change they decide later they want to roll back. There are multiple ways to address this problem and the best available option may not be obvious in all cases.

Incentivized

• Decreased our implementation costs by allowing versioning and back out of customizations made in the field.
• saves developers time through automation of changes between branches - they think less of the plumbing and have more time to write code.
• Downside is training/managing expectations of new developers who come in assuming they will use Git.

Incentivized