Perforce P4 vs. Sourcetree

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Perforce P4
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Perforce P4 (formerly Helix Core) is the company's version control and peer code review solution. Perforce offers add-on products for code review for free, and Git support products.N/A
Sourcetree
Score 7.1 out of 10
N/A
Sourcetree, by Atlassian, is a free version control client for Mac and Windows that works with Git and Mercurial repositories. It's distributed version control allows developers to visualize code, review changesets, stash, cherry-pick between branches or commit with a single click.N/A
Pricing
Perforce P4Sourcetree
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Perforce P4Sourcetree
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Perforce P4Sourcetree
Considered Both Products
Perforce P4
Chose Perforce P4
In my opinion, Perforce Helix Core is on a top level of irritation and anti-user experience. In my experience, I can't do simple things like 1 word file edits, while I have never been confused when using something based on Git.
Chose Perforce P4
Git is great, I love Git. But it's not great for dealing with binary assets, even when using git LFS. Locking is not as simple as on perforce. Git presents some problems on using for non-tech people it can get overwhelming and tech people have to come by and help.
Chose Perforce P4
I am only starting with BiBucket and do not yet have sufficient experience to draw upon for comparison.
Chose Perforce P4
New users of Perforce Helix can be up and running in less than thirty minutes. It is easy to use, but also very powerful. Bitbucket is slow, prone to outages, and (for large teams) requires a team of dedicated administrators. I've had request for information from Bitbucket that …
Chose Perforce P4
My last two jobs used SmartSVN but it required a paid license to use regardless of the number of users. The initial setup for Perforce was much more difficult than SmartSVN. There is a lot of parity between the two software packages even though the terminology can be different. …
Chose Perforce P4
Perforce has a better built native visual client that is much simpler to use than Git's. It has a lot of optimizations in the workflow that can execute common patterns during a usual workday. Perforce also has an easier to understand method of presenting merge conflicts and …
Chose Perforce P4
Perforce is internally hosted, which makes it quite a bit faster. I found it easier to use that GitHub and Bitbucket, at least in terms of checking out files and creating changelists. GitHub and Bitbucket are much better for smaller teams, as they are cloud hosted, making …
Chose Perforce P4
Today's web based software makes them easier to integrate into a development process. Jira with integrated BitBucket as the versioning tool, is ahead of the competition. However for large organizations, Perforce is still a very good choice. GitHub can be used as free tool, but …
Chose Perforce P4
Subversion
  • missing many of the features that Perforce provides, but
  • a much more lightweight versioning system
Chose Perforce P4
Perforce has more features than SVN. However even the simpler tasks in SVN require a degree more technical aptitude with Perforce. Git offers most of the same features, however most of these are only really supported via the command-line in Git, where as most tasks can be …
Chose Perforce P4
Perforce is similar to SVN but the SVN has better command line support. Git surpasses both SVN and Perforce because of its flexibility with multiple branches and code review.
Sourcetree
Chose Sourcetree
I actually recommend Github Desktop for any developer who uses git. It's far more friendly, has good functionality but not overwhelming, and you don't need to use it for github repos.
Sourcetree is only good for if you're wanting to perform complex actions or audit historical …
Chose Sourcetree
Sourcetree allows seamless integration across all widely used GIT services and is cross-platform compatible. This client is capable of managing workflows of any difficulty and its cross-compatibility eliminates the need to use different or multiple GIT clients altogether.
Chose Sourcetree
I tried GitHub Desktop for a couple of days, but it is just not visual enough for me. It has no graph display for branches. Too much clicking is required to get info that the Sourcetree UI shows by default. Sourcetree gives you that "Big Picture" dashboard. GitHub Desktop seems …
Chose Sourcetree
VSC is used with the commandline. For a GUI, we didn't look at any other tools besides Sourcetree.
Chose Sourcetree
Free to use, integrated with useful features like Mercurial, Git LFS, submodules etc, helps new user to learn best practices. With all these features along with tools implemented for authentication and securing repos it becomes the best candidate in front of the competition. If …
Features
Perforce P4Sourcetree
Version Control Software Features
Comparison of Version Control Software Features features of Product A and Product B
Perforce P4
7.9
Ratings
4% below category average
Sourcetree
6.3
Ratings
26% below category average
Branching and Merging8.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Version History8.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Version Control Collaboration Tools8.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Pull Requests8.00 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Code Review Tools8.00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Project Access Control8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated Testing Integration8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Issue Tracking Integration7.00 Ratings3.00 Ratings
Branch Protection8.00 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Perforce P4Sourcetree
Small Businesses
Git
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Score 10.0 out of 10
Git
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Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Git
Git
Score 10.0 out of 10
Git
Git
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Git
Git
Score 10.0 out of 10
Perforce P4
Perforce P4
Score 7.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Perforce P4Sourcetree
Likelihood to Recommend
6.5
(0 ratings)
6.1
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
6.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(0 ratings)
3.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Perforce P4Sourcetree
Likelihood to Recommend
For large-scale codebases with fixed and regular releases that do not follow a continuous delivery paradigm, Perforce is certainly well suited. In projects that are small and distinctly separated from other discrete (though potentially dependent) units, the benefits of the Perforce tool may not be as clear of a victor over other systems.
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I prefer to work visually and use the tool for merge and rebase operations. It helps when managing a large number of repos.
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Pros
  • Merge algorithm is smart and utilizing the visual interface to do merges makes them easier to digest.
  • Easy to set up on multiple platforms and architectures and is well supported on all of them.
  • Visual interface has many tools and customization options that help to optimize and personalize workflow.
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  • Allows to manage GIT repositories in an intuitive and simple user interface
  • Visually represents complicated workflows and branching
  • Integrates with most well known GIT repository managing services
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Cons
  • I was having a hard time learning it. Even if you are an experienced developer, there is some learning curve.
  • Can be slow when working with large data sets at once.
  • When working on multiple workspaces on the same machine, Perforce can make it difficult not to mess up the code.
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  • Refreshing of the interface after a commit or merge
  • All elements being consistent with the repo status
  • Select all button on Trach status on different branches
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Likelihood to Renew
We have a need to consolidate into a single package, and have such a large variety of technical proficiency among our users that Perforce seems less suitable. Many would like to remain using it, however, even those who use Perforce are the minority, and are often limited to our development teams.
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No answers on this topic
Usability
With Perforce Helix, you can use it via the command line, via P4V, or any of the other APIs included with the product. It is extremely easy for new users to get up and running. Users of Perforce Helix only have to pull in the files of interest to them. Also, Perforce is very easy to script and integrate into your CI/CD pipeline. Streams allows you to have pinpoint control of your workflow, and P4Search is the absolute best--I wish Perforce (the company) would talk more about this. It is absolutely fabulous!
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We help new users onboard quickly and then use Sourcetree to handle their day-to-day SCM needs for managing CIs (Configuration Items). We can visually show management the branching and commit history to show the flow and pace of development.
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Reliability and Availability
In our large environment, Perforce is rarely "down". We have regular maintenance windows and from time to time Perforce can feel a little slow, but its always available. Tech support has always worked with our engineers and IT department to make sure that any real performance or stability issues are addressed quickly.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
I had two representatives from Perforce contact me after downloading it but never responded when I had questions. I also had a difficult time finding good training material for getting started. There is a lot of available support material when running into issues, though, because of how many large companies use it.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
This rating is related to setting up an environment from an existing Perforce repository. Initial setup of Perforce as the repository for the company was done by a separate team long prior to my inception.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
New users of Perforce Helix can be up and running in less than thirty minutes. It is easy to use, but also very powerful. Bitbucket is slow, prone to outages, and (for large teams) requires a team of dedicated administrators. I've had request for information from Bitbucket that requires hours to pull together that would take me less than 30 seconds in Perforce Helix. Large file storage in Bitbucket is clunky and requires you to jump through too many hoops. It's not even something you have to think about with Perforce Helix, as you are only limited by your OS. Perforce Helix is very easy to use even for non-developers. I wouldn't dare ask a non-developer to store their documentation in Bitbucket.
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I tried GitHub Desktop for a couple of days, but it is just not visual enough for me. It has no graph display for branches. Too much clicking is required to get info that the Sourcetree UI shows by default. Sourcetree gives you that "Big Picture" dashboard. GitHub Desktop seems unfinished to me due to its lack of this overview screen.
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Return on Investment
  • Locking assets make us have no merge problems which are harder to manage on other versions control without locking
  • Almost no need to give support to artists or non-tech folks because the operations are very straightforward
  • There's no way to do interim checkins without going to the process of creating a stream
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  • In my experience, using Sourcetree actually slows down development if you're the average developer needing to do simple git actions. Getting set up is fast, but the learning curve to use the tool is just too steep if you're just looking to push, pull, commit, branch etc.
  • Sourcetree is not implemented by default at our company, but is recommended as we primarily use Atlassian products. However the lack of integration with other Atlassian products means that this git GUI doesn't give any more or less ROI for your Atlassian ecosystem compared to another git GUI tool.
  • For auditing and exploring history Sourcetree can be very helpful. Having all of this information in one place with a plethora of actions and tools at your disposal means you can audit repos much quicker than any other git GUI or online repo explorer.
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ScreenShots