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Apache Subversion

Score8 out of 10

56 Reviews and Ratings

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What is Apache Subversion?

Apache Subversion is a version control option that is free to download and open source under the Apache 2.0 license.

Categories & Use Cases

Reviews

What users are saying about Apache Subversion.
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Subversion is only slightly subpar

Incentivized
Richard DaviesView profile
Web Application Developer in Information Technology at City of Portland (5001-10,000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Retain a history of changes to a set of files
  • Allow multiple people to collaborate on a set of files and merge changes together

Cons

  • 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.

Most Important Features

  • Free
  • Version control and history
  • Non-locking collaboration model
  • Windows Server compatibility (VisualSVN)

Return on Investment

  • 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.

Alternatives Considered

GitHub and Visual SourceSafe (Discontinued)

Other Software Used

GitHub, Evernote, Slack, Zoom, Dropbox

SVN Apache-Report

Incentivized
Rob DomenicoView profile
Senior Systems Administrator in Information Technology at Bentek Inc. (51-200 employees employees)

Pros

  • Easy install
  • Integrates into agile project standards
  • Revision regressions tracking in projects

Cons

  • Requirements more straight forward (CVS editing options)
  • Some packaged dependencies are unnecessary
  • Potential for vendor packaged security issues

Return on Investment

  • Thus far the ROI has been a positive investment in time and tooling
  • Less requirements for small teams is also a positive
  • No real negatives for our team

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Visual Studio Code and NetBeans

Other Software Used

JFrog Xray, Oracle Java SE

Source code versioning made simpler

Incentivized
Cristian BodnarasecView profile
Senior Software Development Manager in Information Technology at eSilicon (501-1000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Revision control done properly - you have end to end visibility of all changes in the project.
  • Conflict resolution - visually highlighting the differences helps to track down the problem.
  • Being open source and very popular.
  • We are using SVN hosted in our network - it is very stable, we had almost zero downtime in 4 years.
  • Rollbacks are made simple and easy to use.

Cons

  • It is missing the pull request feature which Git has. You can still do it in SVN but more work is needed.
  • It is centralized. Nowadays software developers and teams need more flexibility and will choose Git for that.
  • Performance is not a strength of SVN pulls and commits.
  • The disk space use by working copies is almost double due to the way SVN organizes its working files.
  • Less support for .NET developers since it comes from the open source world.
  • Code reviews could be made simpler to help the reviewer more.

Return on Investment

  • Improved time to market for our software releases - merging code from multiple developers and finding the conflicts faster really helps.
  • Added visibility into all changes in the project. Provided the developer adds some notes on each check-in you will be able to tell the history of features added to the project in time.
  • Allowed us to do collaborative work on the same source code. Previously we were using Visual Source Safe which was not providing this.

Alternatives Considered

Git and Visual SourceSafe

Other Software Used

Visual SourceSafe

A good versioning software

Incentivized
Luca CampanelliView profile
Senior Betting & Online DB Administrator in Information Technology at Intralot Italia S.p.A.- Gamenet Group (51-200 employees employees)

Pros

  • Software versioning
  • Very stable product
  • Easy to use

Cons

  • The installation requires some initial configuration
  • Improved interface
  • Inconvenient update management

Return on Investment

  • Time saved in file management
  • No data loss
  • No need to rewrite objects or make backups

Good and solid version control system

Incentivized
Verified User
Employee in Information Technology (1-10 employees employees)

Pros

  • Track and control concurrent versions of the same files.
  • Has good support from many different software, including visualization, DevOps toolchain.
  • Well documented and understood by developers as it has been around for a long time.

Cons

  • Does not support distributed environment unlike Git.
  • Merging can be painful.
  • Does not natively support advanced features such as pull requests.

Return on Investment

  • Help team members work in parallel by keeping track of the versions of the same files.
  • Improved overall DevOps process, seamlessly fitting into existing systems.

Alternatives Considered

Git