GitHub vs SVN (Subversion)

Overview

GitHub

Stacks295.5K

Followers259.0K

Votes10.4K

SVN (Subversion)

Stacks791

Followers629

Votes43

GitHub Stars614

Forks188

GitHub vs SVN (Subversion): What are the differences?

GitHub and SVN (Subversion) are two popular version control systems. Here are the key differences between GitHub and SVN:

Distributed vs Centralized: GitHub is a distributed version control system (DVCS), while SVN is a centralized version control system. In GitHub, each user has a complete copy of the repository, including its entire history, allowing for offline work and efficient collaboration. Changes can be committed locally and later pushed to the central repository. SVN, on the other hand, relies on a central repository where users commit their changes directly. This centralized approach may require constant network connectivity and can limit offline work and collaboration flexibility.
Branching and Merging: GitHub excels in its branching and merging capabilities. It provides lightweight and easy-to-use branches, allowing developers to work on different features or fixes simultaneously. Branches can be created, merged, and managed efficiently, enabling collaborative development and minimizing conflicts. SVN also supports branching and merging but with a more heavyweight approach. Creating branches in SVN involves copying the entire repository, which can be time-consuming and resource-intensive.
Collaboration and Community: GitHub is a popular platform for open-source collaboration, with a vibrant developer community. It fosters community contributions and provides social features. SVN is often used in traditional corporate environments, focusing on team-based development within the organization rather than community-driven collaboration.
Workflow and Tooling: GitHub supports continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) through integrations with popular tools like Jenkins, Travis CI, and CircleCI. GitHub also provides extensive APIs and webhooks for custom integrations and automation. SVN, while it has some tooling and integrations available, typically relies on a separate build and deployment infrastructure outside of the version control system itself.
Open Source vs Proprietary: GitHub is a cloud-based service and is built around open-source principles. It hosts millions of open-source projects and offers free public repositories. GitHub also provides paid options for private repositories with additional features and storage. SVN, on the other hand, is an open-source centralized version control system that can be self-hosted or used with SVN hosting providers. It doesn't have the same cloud-based infrastructure and community-driven ecosystem as GitHub.

In summary, GitHub is a popular distributed version control system for open-source collaboration, offering features like pull requests and issue tracking. SVN is a centralized version control system commonly used in corporate environments with a more team-focused approach.

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Advice on GitHub, SVN (Subversion)

Anonymous

May 25, 2020

Decided

Gitlab as A LOT of features that GitHub and Azure DevOps are missing. Even if both GH and Azure are backed by Microsoft, GitLab being open source has a faster upgrade rate and the hosted by gitlab.com solution seems more appealing than anything else! Quick win: the UI is way better and the Pipeline is way easier to setup on GitLab!

624k views624k

Comments

Weverton

CTO at SourceLevel

Jul 28, 2020

Review

Using an inclusive language is crucial for fostering a diverse culture. Git has changed the naming conventions to be more language-inclusive, and so you should change. Our development tools, like GitHub and GitLab, already supports the change.

SourceLevel deals very nicely with repositories that changed the master branch to a more appropriate word. Besides, you can use the grep linter the look for exclusive terms contained in the source code.

As the inclusive language gap may happen in other aspects of our lives, have you already thought about them?

944k views944k

Comments

Weverton

CTO at SourceLevel

Aug 3, 2020

Review

Do you review your Pull/Merge Request before assigning Reviewers?

If you work in a team opening a Pull Request (or Merge Request) looks appropriate. However, have you ever thought about opening a Pull/Merge Request when working by yourself? Here's a checklist of things you can review in your own:

Pick the correct target branch
Make Drafts explicit
Name things properly
Ask help for tools
Remove the noise
Fetch necessary data
Understand Mergeability
Pass the message
Add screenshots
Be found in the future
Comment inline in your changes

Read the blog post for more detailed explanation for each item :D

What else do you review before asking for code review?

1.19M views1.19M

Comments

Detailed Comparison

GitHub	SVN (Subversion)
GitHub is the best place to share code with friends, co-workers, classmates, and complete strangers. Over three million people use GitHub to build amazing things together.	Subversion exists to be universally recognized and adopted as an open-source, centralized version control system characterized by its reliability as a safe haven for valuable data; the simplicity of its model and usage; and its ability to support the needs of a wide variety of users and projects, from individuals to large-scale enterprise operations.
Command instructions; Source browser; Git powered wikis; Integrated issue tracking; Code reviews with inline comments; Compare view; Newsfeed; Followers; Developer profiles; Autocompletion for @username mentions	-
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 614
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 188
Stacks 295.5K	Stacks 791
Followers 259.0K	Followers 629
Votes 10.4K	Votes 43
Pros & Cons
Pros 1773 Open source friendly 1463 Easy source control 1254 Nice UI 1137 Great for team collaboration 868 Easy setup Cons 56 Owned by micrcosoft 38 Expensive for lone developers that want private repos 15 Relatively slow product/feature release cadence 10 API scoping could be better 9 Only 3 collaborators for private repos	Pros 20 Easy to use 13 Simple code versioning 5 User/Access Management 3 Complicated code versionioning by Subversion 2 Free Cons 7 Branching and tagging use tons of disk space
Integrations
Grove Lighthouse Airbrake Codeship Bugsnag BugHerd Visual Studio Code HipChat CopperEgg Nitrous.IO	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to GitHub, SVN (Subversion)?

Git

Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

Bitbucket

Bitbucket gives teams one place to plan projects, collaborate on code, test and deploy, all with free private Git repositories. Teams choose Bitbucket because it has a superior Jira integration, built-in CI/CD, & is free for up to 5 users.

GitLab

GitLab offers git repository management, code reviews, issue tracking, activity feeds and wikis. Enterprises install GitLab on-premise and connect it with LDAP and Active Directory servers for secure authentication and authorization. A single GitLab server can handle more than 25,000 users but it is also possible to create a high availability setup with multiple active servers.

RhodeCode

RhodeCode provides centralized control over distributed code repositories. Developers get code review tools and custom APIs that work in Mercurial, Git & SVN. Firms get unified security and user control so that their CTOs can sleep at night

AWS CodeCommit

CodeCommit eliminates the need to operate your own source control system or worry about scaling its infrastructure. You can use CodeCommit to securely store anything from source code to binaries, and it works seamlessly with your existing Git tools.

Gogs

The goal of this project is to make the easiest, fastest and most painless way to set up a self-hosted Git service. With Go, this can be done in independent binary distribution across ALL platforms that Go supports, including Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

Gitea

Git with a cup of tea! Painless self-hosted all-in-one software development service, including Git hosting, code review, team collaboration, package registry and CI/CD. It published under the MIT license.

Mercurial

Mercurial is dedicated to speed and efficiency with a sane user interface. It is written in Python. Mercurial's implementation and data structures are designed to be fast. You can generate diffs between revisions, or jump back in time within seconds.

Upsource

Upsource summarizes recent changes in your repository, showing commit messages, authors, quick diffs, links to detailed diff views and associated code reviews. A commit graph helps visualize the history of commits, branches and merges in your repository.

Beanstalk

A single process to commit code, review with the team, and deploy the final result to your customers.

Related Comparisons

Distributed vs Centralized: GitHub is a distributed version control system (DVCS), while SVN is a centralized version control system. In GitHub, each user has a complete copy of the repository, including its entire history, allowing for offline work and efficient collaboration. Changes can be committed locally and later pushed to the central repository. SVN, on the other hand, relies on a central repository where users commit their changes directly. This centralized approach may require constant network connectivity and can limit offline work and collaboration flexibility.
Branching and Merging: GitHub excels in its branching and merging capabilities. It provides lightweight and easy-to-use branches, allowing developers to work on different features or fixes simultaneously. Branches can be created, merged, and managed efficiently, enabling collaborative development and minimizing conflicts. SVN also supports branching and merging but with a more heavyweight approach. Creating branches in SVN involves copying the entire repository, which can be time-consuming and resource-intensive.
Collaboration and Community: GitHub is a popular platform for open-source collaboration, with a vibrant developer community. It fosters community contributions and provides social features. SVN is often used in traditional corporate environments, focusing on team-based development within the organization rather than community-driven collaboration.
Workflow and Tooling: GitHub supports continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) through integrations with popular tools like Jenkins, Travis CI, and CircleCI. GitHub also provides extensive APIs and webhooks for custom integrations and automation. SVN, while it has some tooling and integrations available, typically relies on a separate build and deployment infrastructure outside of the version control system itself.
Open Source vs Proprietary: GitHub is a cloud-based service and is built around open-source principles. It hosts millions of open-source projects and offers free public repositories. GitHub also provides paid options for private repositories with additional features and storage. SVN, on the other hand, is an open-source centralized version control system that can be self-hosted or used with SVN hosting providers. It doesn't have the same cloud-based infrastructure and community-driven ecosystem as GitHub.

GitHub vs SVN (Subversion)