Comparison of Git with SVN and Mercurial

Last updated on May 28 2022
Meetesh Jain

Table of Contents

Comparison of Git with SVN and Mercurial

Git vs SVN

Apache Subversion or SVN is one of the most popular centralized version control systems. Now, SVN’s popularity is on the decrease, but there are still millions of projects stored in it. It can continue to be actively maintained by an open-source community. In SVN, you can check out a single version of the repository. It stores data in a central server. The drawback of the SVN is, it has the entire history on a local repository which limits you. You can only do commits, diffs, logs, branches, merges, file annotations, etc.

Comparison of Git with SVN and Mercurial
Comparison of Git with SVN and Mercurial

While, Git is a popular distributed version control system, which means that you can clone your repository. Thus you can get a complete copy of your entire history of that project. This means you can access all your commits.

Git has more advantages than SVN. It is much better for those developers who are not always connected to the master repository. Also, it is much faster than SVN.

To better understand the differences between Git and Subversion. Let’s have a look at following significance points.
Git SVN
It’s a distributed version control system. It’s a Centralized version control system
Git is an SCM (source code management). SVN is revision control.
Git has a cloned repository. SVN does not have a cloned repository.
The Git branches are familiar to work. The Git system helps in merging the files quickly and also assist in finding the unmerged ones. The SVN branches are a folder which exists in the repository. Some special commands are required for merging the branches.
Git does not have a Global revision number. SVN has a Global revision number.
Git has cryptographically hashed contents that protect the contents from repository corruption taking place due to network issues or disk failures. SVN does not have any cryptographically hashed contents.
Git stored content as metadata. SVN stores content as files.
Git has more content protection than SVN. SVN’s content is less secure than Git.
Linus Torvalds developed git for Linux kernel. CollabNet, Inc developed SVN.
Git is distributed under GNU (General public license). SVN is distributed under the open-source license.

Git vs Mercurial

Mercurial and Git both are two quite similar and most popular distributed version control systems. Their strengths and weaknesses make them ideal for different use cases. Both tools use a directed acyclic graph to store history.

Mercurial is a distributed source control management tool. It is free and open-source. It can handle projects of any size and offers an easy and intuitive interface.

Today, Git has more than 31 million users and is owned by Microsoft. Since the last decade, the Git has become the standard for most development projects.

Mercurial still has a handful tool of large development organizations. Some software development giants like Facebook, Mozilla, and World Wide Web Consortium are using it. But it only has approx 2 % of the VCS market share. Comparatively, Git has covered more than 80% market share.

Both version control systems, i.e., Mercurial and Git are distributed version control systems (DVCS).

To better understand the similarities and differences between Git and Mercurial, let’s have a look at the following points.

Git Mercurial
Git is a little bit of complex than Mercurial. Mercurial is simpler than Git.
No VCS are entirely secured, but Git offers many functions to enhance safety. Mercurial may be safer for fresher. It has more security features.
Git has a powerful and effective branching model. Branching in Git is better than Branching in Mercurial. Branching in Mercurial doesn’t refer the same meaning as in Git.
Git supports the staging area, which is known as the index file. There is no index or staging area before the commit in Mercurial.
The most significant benefit with Git is that it has become an industry-standard, which means more developers are familiar with it. Mercurial’s significant benefit is that it’s easy to learn and use, which is useful for less-technical content contributors.
Git needs periodic maintenance for repositories. It does not require any maintenance.
It holds Linux heritage. It is python based.
Git is slightly slower than Mercurial. It is faster than Git.
Git supports the unlimited number of parents. Mercurial allows only two parents.

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Version Control with Git and GitHub

Version Control with Git and GitHub Training

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• What is Software Development
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Git and GitHub

• What is version control
• Version Control System (VCS) Products
• Types of VCS
• What is Git
• Why Git for your organization
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• Common commands in Git
• Working with Remote Repositories
• GitHub
• Git Installation
• Git Lifecycle
• GitHub (Push, Pull Request)
• GitHub Workflow

 

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