Overall Satisfaction with Apache Subversion
Our web development team uses Apache Subversion as one of our version control systems. A version control system is a critical tool for software development because it provides a central repository for our shared code and also tracks how our code changes over time, allowing us to view a history of changes or revert back to a previous version if necessary.
- Retain a history of changes to a set of files
- Allow multiple people to collaborate on a set of files and merge changes together
- Apache Subversion works great when all users have access to the central Subversion server. This might mean users need to be on the same network.
- Apache Subversion isn't great for "offline" work as it requires access to the central Subversion server.
- Free
- Version control and history
- Non-locking collaboration model
- Windows Server compatibility (VisualSVN)
- Apache Subversion was easy to install and configure, and requires little maintenance.
- We have had a few instances where the code repository has become corrupted and repairing this situation requires significant time and is frustrating.
- It has a relatively easy learning curve so new users require little training and can be productive very early.
- GitHub and Visual SourceSafe (Discontinued)
After Microsoft Visual SourceSafe was discontinued, we chose Subversion and it was a great choice. We were able to migrate to Apache Subversion very quickly and easily and benefited immediately from its non-locking workflow (SourceSafe required users to "lock" the file when editing to prevent editing conflicts from other users, whereas Subversion allows multiple users to edit the same file simultaneously and then merge conflicts later.)
While we still use Apache Subversion for our legacy projects, we've migrated to Git and GitHub for our new projects as that is the new "cool kid" and it provides some benefits such as distributed and offline development. But Git is more complex than Apache Subversion and not as easy to learn.
Do you think Apache Subversion delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Apache Subversion's feature set?
Yes
Did Apache Subversion live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Apache Subversion go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Apache Subversion again?
No