Introducing
The Slant team built an AI & it’s awesome
Find the best product instantly
Add to Chrome
Add to Edge
Add to Firefox
Add to Opera
Add to Brave
Add to Safari
Try it now
4.7 star rating
0
Development
Game Development
Design
What are the best open-source version control systems for artists?
7
Options
Considered
40
User
Recs.
Jul 18, 2022
Last
Updated
Related Questions
Activity
Have feedback or ideas?
Join our community
on Discord
Ad
7
Options
Considered
Best open-source version control systems for artists
Price
Platforms
Technology
--
Git
-
-
-
--
Mercurial
0
-
-
--
Fossil
-
Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD
C++
--
Helix
-
-
-
--
Subversion
-
-
-
See Full List
--
Git
My Rec
ommendation
for
Git
My Recommendation for
Git
All
10
Pros
5
Cons
5
Top
Con
•••
Steep learning curve
The large number of commands and functions that Git provides can be discouraging for beginners. Learning how Git works can be a difficult concept to grasp at first.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Fast
With Git, nearly all operations are performed locally, giving it a huge speed advantage on centralized systems that constantly have to communicate with a server somewhere.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Poor handling of binary data
Binary files (images, music... etc) are not handled so efficiently when there are many versions, since each version must be stored locally (which is unavoidable with distributed version management). nevertheless it is an issue. However, there is a git extension available (git LFS) that addresses this issue.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Decentralized
Doesn't require access to a central repository, because each checkout is a full repository by itself.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Counter-intuitive for non-programmers
Good luck explaining non-programmer what "rebase" is...
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Good documentation
Git documentation covers everything from revision control system basics to Git specific features in a short and clear way.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Excruciatingly slow checkouts from huge repos
On checkout, you have to download the whole repo. And for unmergeable artist files, repos can easily reach terabytes in size. Good luck living long enough until it checks out...
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Awesome Git GUIs
Like GitKraken, Github Desktop and SourceTree
See More
Top
Con
•••
Lack of locking
In programming world, locking is a Bad Thing(tm). But for unmergeable artist files - locking is THE MUST.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Good handle of binary data if using LFS
See More
Hide
See All
Get it
here
Recommend
13
4
--
Mercurial
My Rec
ommendation
for
Mercurial
My Recommendation for
Mercurial
All
11
Pros
9
Cons
2
Top
Pro
•••
Native Windows support
Native Windows support. No trace of cygwin or other dirty hacks typically found in competitors.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Lack of locking
In programming world, locking is a Bad Thing(tm). But for unmergeable artist files - locking is THE MUST.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Same features Git provides, but much easier to use and to understand
The command-line interface is more intuitive, requiring much less memorization and exotic options/piping to achieve the same thing you would in git.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Slow with checkouts from huge repos
On checkout, you have to download the whole repo. And for unmergeable artist files, it can easily reach terabytes in size. Good luck living long enough until it checks out.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Good documentation
Mercurial documentation covers everything from revision control system basics to mercurial specific features in a short and clear way.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Easy to use
Mercurial is a more intuitive option than many of its competitors. The documentation is well organized and easy for beginners to read & understand.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Actively contributed to by Facebook
Mercurial is actively contributed to by the developers at Facebook as they use it for their massive source repository.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Doesn't delete history
Mercurial makes it pretty darn hard to delete history by mistake. In Git, if you mistakenly commit to HEAD and switch to a different branch, your commit is toast. Yes, you can dig through the reflog but most users don't even know of its existence and will wish they didn't once they find out.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Decentralized
Doesn't require access to a central repository, because each checkout is a full repository by itself.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Extensible
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Fast
Mercurial is designed to make performing operations (such as commits, clones etc.) fast.
See More
Hide
See All
0
Recommend
5
1
--
Fossil
My Rec
ommendation
for
Fossil
My Recommendation for
Fossil
All
8
Pros
7
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Very complete
Fossil includes source code management, bug tracking, a wiki, and technotes. It even includes its own web server, though it can fairly easily be incorporated into other webservers.
See More
Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD
Technology:
C++
Top
Pro
•••
Needs very few server resources
Since Fossil is a distributed VCS on top of being a bug tracker, it needs very few server resources.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Cross-platform
Fossil can run on Linux, Mac, BSD derivatives and on Windows.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Web UI built in
Convenient for self-hosted projects.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Self-contained
On Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD Fossil is just a single binary,
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Secure yet forgiving
Fossil is secure: by design, it never forgets anything. This pilosophy makes it very difficult to mess up a repository, or lose data, by making a false maneuver. At the same time, Fossil does recognize that people do sometimes make mistakes. For example, it is possible to amend a commit message (much) later on. It is also possible to change a revision’s branch after the fact.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Very easy to configure as self-hosted
Single, stand-alone executable, including web server.
See More
Hide
See All
Get it
here
Recommend
4
--
Helix
My Rec
ommendation
for
Helix
My Recommendation for
Helix
All
2
Pros
2
Top
Pro
•••
Less support
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Shortcode support
See More
Hide
Get it
here
Recommend
1
--
Subversion
My Rec
ommendation
for
Subversion
My Recommendation for
Subversion
All
12
Pros
7
Cons
5
Top
Pro
•••
Simpler learning curve
See More
Top
Con
•••
Centralized
The SVN repository may be in a location you can't reach. On a plane? On the road? At grandma's house? You can't commit.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Binary files handled efficiently
See More
Top
Con
•••
Impractical for private users
Normally, an SVN repository is set up on a server by a system administrator of a group working on some programming project, and everybody else just has a client installed on their machine. There is no simple way to “quickly set up a local repo for tracking some private files”.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Easy to understand externals
E.g. more easy to understand than Git's submodules.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Commit = publish
The repository won't learn about your work until you commit. Because commits are public and branches are expensive, developers are encouraged to hide their work until complete. No ability to stash / save work.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Clear and simple operation
It has linear history, central repository and management. Lacks too complex features, almost every developer is familiar with it, so everyone knows what to expect and how to work with it.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Uses more disk space
Files are not packed efficiently in the repository.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Free-form versioned metadata
See More
Top
Con
•••
Heavyweight branches
Branching and merging are slow, expensive operations. These should be done frequently, and this will slow you down a lot.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
File locking
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Incremental revision numbers
Gives you a better indication on how old a specific revision is without needing any more details.
See More
Hide
See All
Get it
here
Recommend
6
3
--
Snowtrack
My Rec
ommendation
for
Snowtrack
My Recommendation for
Snowtrack
All
2
Pros
1
Cons
1
Top
Pro
•••
Intuitive for non-programmers
The UI is straightforward and the version control tools are seamlessly integrated in a traditional file explorer.
See More
Top
Con
•••
As of time of writing still in beta
Product is in active development and some features are not polished yet.
See More
Hide
Free
Recommend
2
--
git-annex
My Rec
ommendation
for
git-annex
My Recommendation for
git-annex
All
2
Pros
1
Cons
1
Top
Pro
•••
Large files can be kept off-site until needed
Git-annex doesn't necessarily store all content everywhere you use the repository. Instead, you can check out only the files you need right now. Git-annex figures out automatically from which remote to fetch files when you do need them. This doesn't require a server, the files can also be on some USB hard drives, in which case Git-annex will tell you which drive you need to connect to get a particular file.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Doesn't work very well with NTFS
Many artists are stuck on Windows, but Git-Annex relies on symlinks which are only properly supported by Linux and OSX. It does have a direct mode which also works on NTFS drives, but in this mode in doesn't work as smoothly
See More
Hide
0
Recommend
1
Don't see your favorite option? Add it.
Built By the Slant team
Find the best product instantly.
4.7 star rating
Add to Chrome
Add to Edge
Add to Firefox
Add to Opera
Add to Brave
Add to Safari
Try it now - it's free
One sec!
Are you sure that you want to abandon your hard work?
Delete Work
Continue working
{}
undefined
url next
price drop