Is there an open-source, web-based, self-hosted, revision control system?

Question

Not something like Gitweb because you can only BROWSE and not actually check out/in files.

I'm thinking of something like Visual SourceSafe, but web-based, and open-source, that you can host yourself.

Trac might be closer to what I'm looking for, but I've heard bad things about it.

Any other options?

EDIT: I'm working on a PHP / MySQL web development project with several developers, and we want a system that we can all access through the web (we live in different countries), can check out/in files, compare versions of files, and label files. So, think of Visual SourceSafe, but that you can use through a browser. Is there nothing like this?

Answer 1

SVN can be hosted yourself and has many GUI frontends, but I'm not sure how you'd actually do revision control via a web interface given the file system needs. Unless you're planning on editing right on the server through this web interface..

Answer 2

You can use svn. I've managed to make it work on both windows and linux (on debian it was a lot easier). Svn requires apache to be running. Configuration is easy, you can integrate it with trac(which is very easy to install on linux and very hard to install on windows).

Quick steps to install:

1. install apache
2. install mod dav_svn
3. create repository with svn-admin create
4. create ACL
5. make it available through dav_svn (few lines of code)

Answer 3

I just started using BeanStalkApp and I love it.

You can:

• Import from existing repos
• Create users with roles to manage/view your repo
• Track changes in a graphical way and collaborate
• Browse files (syntax highlighted)
• Integrate with other web apps

The free account is enough for me and my school work. I love it.

EDIT: You would still need to do check-ins the 'normal' way. But you could use a GUI app within Linux/Windows/Mac for that purpose.

Answer 4

Why would anyone want to use a browser for this? I spent a VERY painful year at a company that required us to use PVCS with a browser interface. It was horrible. I would have preferred just using backed up directories for version control. What a nightmare.

If you were evaluating Trac as a version control system I encourage you to do a bit more research than just posting a question on SO - especially if you are going to be hosting your own. That, to me, is a definite beginner mistake. Do you really want to manage backups of the repository and manage a public-facing server or a VPN?

You can get pretty cheap hosting - from free to a few dollars per month for svn or git or mercurial hosting.

Source/Version control is a great example of something that should NOT be a browser based app.

Answer 5

Being able to access a Version Control System (VCS) over HTTP(S) without using the command line doesn't mean you have to use a web-based interface. It means the VCS and its clients have to support an HTTP(S) based protocol. So, actually, you could use Subversion and WebDAV and a graphical client like TortoiseSVN.

Answer 6

If you have a windows environment, try VisualSVN Server - its free, web based, and really easy to install. And it uses Subversion which IMO is much better than Visual SourceSafe. You can use any Subversion client to connect to it.

Answer 7

Try Sharesource. Mercurial + SVN is supported, soon Git. You can download the code, use it and improve it while creating your own project hosting site.

To avoid (XYZ) start up commercial forge from just using the code and not giving back, SS is licensed under AGPL3. Contact the author and you will likely receive a 3 clause BSD license if you promise to share any major improvement.

Disclaimer: I'm an admin there and know the original author quite well.