Comparison between CVS

Back to main page

SCM feature:	CVS	Add to comparison: +AccuRev +Aegis +AllChange +Arch +Bazaar +BitKeeper +ClearCase +CM+ +CMSynergy +Co-Op +Darcs +Git +LibreSource Synchronizer +Mercurial +Monotone +OpenCM +Perforce +PureCM +SourceAnywhere +Subversion +Superversion +Surround SCM +svk +Team Foundation Server +Vesta +Visual SourceSafe
Atomic Commits	No. CVS commits are not atomic.
Files and Directories Moves or Renames	No. Renames are not supported and a manual one may break history in two.
Intelligent Merging after Moves or Renames	No. Renames are not supported at all, much less intelligent ones.
File and Directories Copies	No. Copies are not supported.
Remote Repository Replication	Indirectly, by using CVSup by John Polstra (which requires running the cvsupd daemon on the server)
Propagating Changes to Parent Repositories	No.
Repository Permissions	Limited. "pre-commit hook scripts" can be used to implement various permissions systems.
Changesets' Support	No. Changes are file-specific.
Tracking Line-wise File History	Yes. cvs annotate
Ability to Work only on One Directory of the Repository	Yes.
Tracking Uncommited Changes	Yes. Using cvs diff
Per-File Commit Messages	No. Commit messages are per change.
Documentation	Excellent. There are many online tutorials and resources and an online book. The command line client also provides an online comprehensive help system.
Ease of Deployment	Good. Out of being the de-facto standard, CVS is available on most systems and is easy to deploy.
Command Set	A simple command set that includes three most commonly used commands (cvs commit, cvs update and cvs checkout) and several others.
Networking Support	Good. CVS uses a proprietary protocol with various variations for its client/server protocol. This protocol can be tunneled over an SSH-connection to support encryption.
Portability	Good. Client works on UNIX, Windows and Mac OS. Server works on UNIXes and on Windows with a UNIX emulation layer.
Web Interface	Yes. CVSweb, ViewVC, Chora, and wwCVS.
Availability of Graphical User-Interfaces.	Very good. There are many available GUIs: WinCVS, Cervisia (for KDE), TortoiseCVS (Windows Explorer plug-in).