What is a good free source control solution

Question

I am looking for a new source control solution. We are currently using an ancient version of VSS, and it sucks.

This will be used by only me for now, and at most two or three others in the future.

I would like it to be usable from within VS 2008.

It has to be free. Our company is not buying any new software due to the economic downturn.

Answer 1

Subversion

git

Answer 2

Git

Answer 3

A combination of Subversion and AnkhSVN should provide an excellent solution for version control in a VS 2008 environment. Both are open source.

Answer 4

Subversion (SVN) is a great tool, so is GIT. I find that SVN's toolset is a little more mature in the Windows world.

All the expected options are available for free (typically GPL): local & remote access, web server (through mod_svn), libraries for most programming languages to extend your toolchain, etc.

Visual Studio integration is available through AnkhSVN (as mentioned above). Windows integration is available through TortoiseSVN

Visual SVN server is a free windows app that makes setting up your SVN server much easier than using the command line SVN tools.

Also great documentation at: http://svnbook.red-bean.com/

Answer 5

Subverion with the open source Visual Studio ankhsvn plugin works a treat

http://ankhsvn.open.collab.net

Answer 6

I recommend Mercurial. It has an interface similar to Subversion, which seems to be popular here. I find Mercurial to be superior to Subversion.

There's also a plugin for Visual Studio.

Answer 7

I will recommend Git as it is distributed and very actively under development.

If you are going for a non-distributed SCM, Subversion is a good choice. You can also use Git to work in a workflow similar to how you may work in Subversion.

Answer 8

CVS was the VCS of choice for a long time but that seems to have been superseeded by Subversion. These (like VSS) are client/server based source control. You could also look at Git. This hosts (for example) the Linux Kernel development as well as many more open source projects. Git unlike Subversion or CVS is a distributed VCS that is rapidly gaining traction. All of this are free as in speech.

Answer 9

We use Subversion with tortoise SVN, and supplement that with Ankh. It all works very nicely, and it integrates nicely with Team City (also free, to a point!)

Answer 10

Depending on how many client access licenses you need, Perforce has a free option.

Answer 11

I highly recommend Subversion. I have implemented it as follows:

• VisualSVN Server as the subversion server
• VisualSVN client as the plugin to visual studio