Comparison between Git

Back to main page

SCM feature:	Git	Add to comparison: +CVS +AccuRev +Aegis +AllChange +Arch +Bazaar +BitKeeper +ClearCase +CM+ +CMSynergy +Co-Op +Darcs +LibreSource Synchronizer +Mercurial +Monotone +OpenCM +Perforce +PureCM +SourceAnywhere +Subversion +Superversion +Surround SCM +svk +Team Foundation Server +Vesta +Visual SourceSafe
Atomic Commits	Yes. Commits are atomic.
Files and Directories Moves or Renames	Renames are supported for most practical purposes. Git even detects renames when a file has been changed afterward the rename. However, due to a peculiar repository structure, renames are not recorded explicitly, and Git has to deduce them (which works well in practice).
Intelligent Merging after Moves or Renames	No. As detailed in the Git FAQ: "Git has a rename command git mv, but that is just a convenience. The effect is indistinguishable from removing the file and adding another with different name and the same content."
File and Directories Copies	No. Copies are not supported.
Remote Repository Replication	Yes. This is very intrinsic feature of Git.
Propagating Changes to Parent Repositories	Yes. (The Linux kernel development process uses this extremely often).
Repository Permissions	No, but a single server can serve many repositories. Also, UNIX permissions can be used to some extent.
Changesets' Support	Yes, Changesets are supported, and there's some flexibility in creating them.
Tracking Line-wise File History	Yes. (git blame).
Ability to Work only on One Directory of the Repository	No. However, commits could be restricted somewhat, see the "Repository Permissions".
Tracking Uncommited Changes	Yes. Also, branches are very lightweight in Git, and could be considered a kind of storage for "uncommitted" code in some workflows.
Per-File Commit Messages	No. Commit messages are per changeset.
Documentation	Medium. The short help is too terse and obscure. The man pages are extensive, but tend to be confusing. The are many tutorials.
Ease of Deployment	Good. Binary packages are available for modern platforms. C compiler and Perl are required. Requires cygwin on Windows, and has some UNIXisms.
Command Set	Command set is very feature-rich, and not compatible with CVS.
Networking Support	Excellent. Can use native Git protocol, but works over rsync, ssh, HTTP and HTTPS also.
Portability	The client works on most UNIXes, but not on native MS-Windows. The cygwin build seems to be workable, though.
Web Interface	Yes. Gitweb is included in distribution.
Availability of Graphical User-Interfaces.	Gitk is included in distribution. Qgit and Git-gui tools are also available.