Comparison between SourceAnywhere and Arch

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SCM feature: SourceAnywhere Arch Add to comparison: +CVS
+AccuRev
+Aegis
+AllChange
+Bazaar
+BitKeeper
+ClearCase
+CM+
+CMSynergy
+Co-Op
+Darcs
+Git
+LibreSource Synchronizer
+Mercurial
+Monotone
+OpenCM
+Perforce
+PureCM
+Subversion
+Superversion
+Surround SCM
+svk
+Team Foundation Server
+Vesta
+Visual SourceSafe
Atomic Commits
Yes. Commits are atomic.
Files and Directories Moves or Renames
Yes. Both moves and renames are supported, while maintaining history. Yes. Renames are supported.
Intelligent Merging after Moves or Renames
Unknown. FILL IN. Yes. Renames can be merged intelligently.
File and Directories Copies
Copying doesn't retain history, moving does. No. Copies of files and directory structures are not supported.
Remote Repository Replication
Not directly possible with the included GUI or command line tools; Some SQL Server tool might be useable. Yes.
Propagating Changes to Parent Repositories
Not directly possible with the included GUI or command line tools; Some SQL Server tool might be useable. Yes.
Repository Permissions
Yes. SourceAnywhere Server Manager can define access to a repository per user or group and user access rights to a project. Yes. It is possible to define permissions on access to different parts of a remote repository based on the permission systems of the underlying protocol.
Changesets' Support
Not exactly. SourceAnywhere uses a related concept of configurations instead, which some has similar properties. Yes. Changesets are supported.
Tracking Line-wise File History
Yes. (SAW annotate) Not in the command line client, but ViewARCH, a web-interface for Arch, has it.
Ability to Work only on One Directory of the Repository
Yes. SourceAnywhere can define the user access right to each project and users can be restricted to work only on the projects they have check out/in right. It is possible to commit only a certain directory. However, one must check out the entire repository as a whole.
Tracking Uncommited Changes
Yes. Using saw diff. Yes, using "tla changes".
Per-File Commit Messages
No. There is no such feature. No.
Documentation
Good. There's an overview and tutorial on the web site, and integrated help for every command. Medium. There are two online tutorials and a comprehensive online documentation. The command line client also supplies a reference page. However, some of the documentation is out of date or incomplete.
Ease of Deployment
Excellent. Dynamsoft SourceAnywhere is extremely easy to install. It is totally written in C++ from scratch, which means that you don't need any additional components and frameworks to support the installation. Excellent. An arch service is nothing but a filesystem-space hosted by any of its supported protocols (FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, etc.). The arch client is written in C, and is portable across UNIX systems (and on Win32 only with a UNIX emulation layer).
Command Set
Very extensive but not compatible with CVS. Many commands are compatible with CVS or BitKeeper. However, there are many other commands for it for different uses. Aliasing of commands is possible so it it may be possible to make it more compatible.
Networking Support
Good. (single TCP/IP socket) Excellent. Arch can utilize a multitude of protocols for its service, which is nothing but a dumb remote filesystem server. Currently supported protocols include FTP, SFTP, WebDAV (remote file access over HTTP), as well as any remote filesystem protocol (NFS, SMB).
Portability
Good. The server runs on Windows only. Clients can work on any platform that SWT (Standard Widget Toolkit) supports, including Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, SCO Unix, FreeBSD and so on. Good. The source is portable across all UNIXes, but requires a UNIX emulation layer on Windows. (need to verify). A service can be hosted on any platform that sports a suitable Internet service.
Web Interface
Currently not. There's ViewARCH, and ArchZoom which are works in progress.
Availability of Graphical User-Interfaces.
The system is GUI-based by design. There are tlator, Octopy, and ArchWay and possibly others under development.
 


Information taken from Better SCM Initiative website by Shlomi Fish (shlomif@iglu.org.il).

Reorganized for usability by Alexey Mahotkin (Version Control Blog) in 2008.

 

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