StackShareStackShare
Follow on
StackShare

Discover and share technology stacks from companies around the world.

Follow on

© 2025 StackShare. All rights reserved.

Product

  • Stacks
  • Tools
  • Feed

Company

  • About
  • Contact

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Version Control
  4. Version Control System
  5. Mercurial vs Tower

Mercurial vs Tower

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Mercurial
Mercurial
Stacks229
Followers219
Votes105
Tower
Tower
Stacks214
Followers360
Votes80

Mercurial vs Tower: What are the differences?

What is Mercurial? A distributed version control system. 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.

What is Tower? The most powerful Git client for Mac & Windows. Use all of Git's powerful feature set - in a GUI that makes you more productive.

Mercurial can be classified as a tool in the "Version Control System" category, while Tower is grouped under "Source Code Management Desktop Apps".

"Easy-to-grasp system with nice tools" is the top reason why over 15 developers like Mercurial, while over 16 developers mention "Git" as the leading cause for choosing Tower.

According to the StackShare community, Tower has a broader approval, being mentioned in 29 company stacks & 16 developers stacks; compared to Mercurial, which is listed in 26 company stacks and 16 developer stacks.

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs
CLI (Node.js)
or
Manual

Detailed Comparison

Mercurial
Mercurial
Tower
Tower

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.

Use all of Git's powerful feature set - in a GUI that makes you more productive.

-
Clone & create repos with a click - Manage your GitHub, Bitbucket & Beanstalk accounts from within Tower;Open repos quickly - Tower's "Quick Open" dialog finds and opens repositories in no time;Automate the boring stuff - Fetching and stashing are automatically done for you, if you wish;Clone in the background- Downloading large projects happens in the background, while you work;Multiple windows - Have multiple projects open side-by-side
Statistics
Stacks
229
Stacks
214
Followers
219
Followers
360
Votes
105
Votes
80
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 18
    A lot easier to extend than git
  • 17
    Easy-to-grasp system with nice tools
  • 13
    Works on windows natively without cygwin nonsense
  • 11
    Written in python
  • 9
    Free
Cons
  • 0
    Does not distinguish between local and remote head
  • 0
    Track single upstream only
Pros
  • 19
    Git
  • 16
    Just works
  • 10
    Version control
  • 6
    Simple layout
  • 6
    Awesome
Cons
  • 5
    Expensive
  • 4
    Subscription based
  • 1
    No side by side diff
  • 0
    Merge conflict resolution impossible/unclear
Integrations
Windows
Windows
Fedora
Fedora
FreeBSD
FreeBSD
Debian
Debian
Gentoo Linux
Gentoo Linux
Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Bitbucket
Bitbucket
TextMate
TextMate
Visual Studio
Visual Studio
GitHub
GitHub
GitLab
GitLab
Git
Git
Xcode
Xcode
Gerrit Code Review
Gerrit Code Review
Beanstalk
Beanstalk

What are some alternatives to Mercurial, Tower?

Git

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.

SourceTree

SourceTree

Use the full capability of Git and Mercurial in the SourceTree desktop app. Manage all your repositories, hosted or local, through SourceTree's simple interface.

GitKraken

GitKraken

The downright luxurious Git client for Windows, Mac and Linux. Cross-platform, 100% standalone, and free.

Fork

Fork

Manage your repositories without leaving the application. Organize the repositores into categories. Fork's Diff Viewer provides a clear view to spot the changes in your source code quickly.

Sublime Merge

Sublime Merge

A snappy UI, three-way merge tool, side-by-side diffs, syntax highlighting, and more. Evaluate for free – no account, tracking, or time limits.

SVN (Subversion)

SVN (Subversion)

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.

GitUp

GitUp

GitUp lets you see your entire labyrinth of branches and merges with perfect clarity. Any change you make, large or small, even outside GitUp, is immediately reflected in GitUp's graph. No refreshing, no waiting.

Plastic SCM

Plastic SCM

Plastic SCM is a distributed version control designed for big projects. It excels on branching and merging, graphical user interfaces, and can also deal with large files and even file-locking (great for game devs). It includes "semantic" features like refactor detection to ease diffing complex refactors.

Pijul

Pijul

Pijul is a free and open source (AGPL 3) distributed version control system. Its distinctive feature is to be based on a sound theory of patches, which makes it easy to learn and use, and really distributed.

DVC

DVC

It is an open-source Version Control System for data science and machine learning projects. It is designed to handle large files, data sets, machine learning models, and metrics as well as code.

Related Comparisons

GitHub
Bitbucket

Bitbucket vs GitHub vs GitLab

GitHub
Bitbucket

AWS CodeCommit vs Bitbucket vs GitHub

Kubernetes
Rancher

Docker Swarm vs Kubernetes vs Rancher

gulp
Grunt

Grunt vs Webpack vs gulp

Graphite
Kibana

Grafana vs Graphite vs Kibana