Enjoying Apache Subversion
November 30, 2018

Enjoying Apache Subversion

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Apache Subversion

Subversion is being used by our engineering team to manage the development code we write for the company.

Pros

  • Can be used from many locations, like a cloud-based system but with more custom control--and its free!
  • Multiple projects easily stored in a single repository, which aids in maintenance of common code, yet also easily allows for separate repositories where no sharing is desired.
  • Very stable, with lots of additional tools to help maintain and examine repositories (e.g. websvn).
  • Much easier to understand when coming from more traditional SCM systems like CVS and Perforce (as opposed to Git, which is a bit of a paradigm shift).

Cons

  • Refactoring the layout of a respoitory--or a part of a repository--can be a bit painful, especially for users with workspaces associated with the affected part of the repository. Not sure what could be done to make that better, but it would be nice if something was possible.
  • Folks coming from Git can have problems using Subversion. Again, not sure anything can (or should) be done to address that, but it is occasionally an issue.
  • Subversion helps us feel secure in maintaining access to all of our product code, both current and historical.
  • Being free and open source makes it an even better "investment".
I find Perforce to be a little more cumbersome to use than Subversion. And it is NOT free or open source.
Where multiple developers have well-defined areas of responsibility it works great! When many developers are all working in the same area of code, so changes overlap, then it is more of a challenge. But, like Git, it has pretty good merge tools to help resolve conflicts.

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