#1 most frequent
United States of America
11.4%331 installations of 2,897
What is Perforce P4?
Perforce P4 (formerly Helix Core) is the company's version control and peer code review solution. Perforce offers add-on products for code review for free, and Git support products.
Categories & Use Cases
Top Performing Features
Branching and Merging
Allows users to create separate branches to work on specific features or fixes and merge them back into the main codebase when ready.
Category average: 9.3
Version History
Keeps a record of all changes made to files in the repository, allowing users to track the evolution of the code and revert to previous versions if needed.
Category average: 9.7
Version Control Collaboration Tools
Facilitates collaboration among team members by enabling them to work on the same codebase concurrently, resolve conflicts, and review each other's changes.
Category average: 9.5
Areas for Improvement
Automated Testing Integration
Integrates with continuous integration tools to automatically run tests on code changes, ensuring that new code does not introduce errors or bugs.
Category average: 8.2
Branch Protection
Prevents accidental or unauthorized changes to critical branches by restricting direct commits and enforcing code review processes before merging.
Category average: 9.3
Issue Tracking Integration
Integrates with issue tracking systems to link code changes to specific issues or tasks, providing traceability and context for changes made.
Category average: 8.6
Who Buys & Uses Perforce P4
#2 most frequent
Germany
8.9%257 installations of 2,897
#3 most frequent
Italy
7.0%204 installations of 2,897
The standard
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I use Perforce Helix Core to upload and download files across our team. A place where anyone on our team can access the files and at the same time know who is working on which file so they don't work on the same file and overwrite it by accidently saving over the file.
Pros
- A place to add your organizations files across all departments
- syncing files on your computer
- download and uploading files is fairly easy
Cons
- an updated UI that is more modern
- automate the process of updating files in real time so you don't have to manually refresh to see updated files
- could simplify the literature in the preferences to make it more understandable of what the preferences are doing
Return on Investment
- its the gold standard for game development
- It does take some time to understand the workings of how to think about using Perforce Helix Core
Usability
Other Software Used
GitHub
Great for Game Development, with Room for Improvements
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Perforce Helix Core as a source control for the development of our game. We use it for all the binaries, art assets, audio assets, and source code files for all our projects. So, almost everything. We also use Swarm to review code changes on the project. It works great with Unreal so we are also using Unreal Game Sync to ease the sync for all users.
Pros
- Source control of binary files
- Ease of use
- Artist-Friendly
- Locking of assets to avoid merge problems
Cons
- Version control of code files
- Branching is too dificult
- Sometimes is very slow
- GUI is not the greatest
Return on Investment
- Locking assets make us have no merge problems which are harder to manage on other versions control without locking
- Almost no need to give support to artists or non-tech folks because the operations are very straightforward
- There's no way to do interim checkins without going to the process of creating a stream
Alternatives Considered
Git
This review is the result of anger due to the bad user experience in Perforce Helix Core P4V Desktop client
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
In my opinion, Perforce Helix Core is the most confusing and inefficient code management repo software that I have ever used. I often get stuck in unrecoverable mode in the desktop app, so I just create a new workspace to start from scratch. In my experience, it's contra-intuitive and hard to find details on the Internet how to resolve issues. I don't recommend using Perforce Helix Core. I think you would be much happier with any Git flavor.
Pros
- In my experience, Wasting time
- In my experience, Killing motivation
- In my experience, Causing huge anger
Cons
- In my opinion, Give up and switch to Git
Return on Investment
- In my experience, Totally negative impact on my productivity.
Alternatives Considered
GitLab and GitHub
Other Software Used
Jenkins, Sonatype Nexus Repository OSS
Great Code Version Control
Pros
- Merge algorithm is smart and utilizing the visual interface to do merges makes them easier to digest.
- Easy to set up on multiple platforms and architectures and is well supported on all of them.
- Visual interface has many tools and customization options that help to optimize and personalize workflow.
Cons
- Updating Perforce is somewhat challenging, especially on Linux Systems.
- Sometimes settings disappear.
- In order to customize the font settings, you must restart the visual client.
- Perforce could display its progress in a clearer way.
Return on Investment
- Reduce merge issues which saves a lot of time and prevents issues.
- Easy to set up and start working for new hires or new systems, which saves time.
- Clear visual presentation of code version metadata improves overall clarity into code base.
Alternatives Considered
Git
Other Software Used
Visual Studio IDE, Sublime Text, Atlassian Confluence
Perforce Helix -- Easy, Fast, and Rock-Solid
Pros
- Perforce is fast.
- It is easy to use.
- It is easy to administer.
- There is nothing that can beat it when it comes to flexibility.
- Support is top-notch.
Cons
- Perforce (the company) needs to market itself better.
- While their Support is the best there is, account management could be better.
- They could be better about notifying users of new features.
Return on Investment
- Perforce Helix is fast, both to retrieve and submit files.
- It is easy to administer, and requires very little time.
- Perforce helps us produce better software, faster.
- It allows us to meet compliance requirements with ease.
Alternatives Considered
Bitbucket and Apache Subversion
Usability
Other Software Used
Jira Software, Slack, Splunk Enterprise