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It is essential that developers keep track of their code changes, particularly when you have numerous developers making alterations to the same codebase. By incorporating a version control tool into your organization you can ensure that you follow and manage any changes to your source code and keep historic versions preserved.
Version control regularly referred to as source control, entails monitoring and managing changes and alterations to software code. Utilizing version control you guarantee that every single change made to the software code is tracked. By adopting version control software developers have the ability to view the entire history of alterations produced by individuals at any given moment. Moreover, it allows them to revert from the current version to a previous one if necessary and creates a single source of truth.
Version control systems and tools enable software developers and their teams to work more efficiently. As well as this, they allow DevOps to quicken successful deployments and shorten development time.
Tackling challenges like employee collaboration, managing multiple iterations of information, and guaranteeing data backup, is crucial for any global organization. Overcoming these problems is vital for the success of a business, making a version control system or tool indispensable in such scenarios.
Within this article, we will outline what a version control tool is and list some of the best examples of the tools currently on the market, for a range of different use cases and scenarios.
Contents
What is a Version Control Tool?
A version control tool can be defined as a software application that aids in tracking and managing alterations to files and code in a collaborative development environment. It enables numerous developers to work on a project at the same time, keeping track of various versions of files, and supplying mechanisms to merge changes made by different team members. Also, a version control tool is often known as a version control system (VCS) or source code management (SCM) system.
The main objectives of version control tools are to maintain a history of changes, enable collaboration, facilitate the identification of who made specific changes, and enable developers to revert to previous versions if needed.
Version Control Tools
To assist you with your decision to implement a version control tool, we have devised a list of some of the best version control tools below.
GitHub
Technically speaking, GitHub is not a version control tool and is actually a web-based platform that hosts version control repositories. Git is the actual version control system that GitHub predominantly uses.
GitHub improves the usability of Git by supplying a centralized platform for hosting repositories, managing collaborative work, and providing additional features such as issue tracking, project management tools, and pull requests. Developers utilize Git on their local machines to manage versions of their code, and they can then push those alterations to GitHub to share and collaborate with other team members. GitHub is free, but some additional features require a paid subscription.
GitLab
GitLab is very similar to GitHub in that it technically isn’t a version control tool but is instead a web-based platform that provides a set of tools for managing Git repositories. Once again, Git is the actual version control tool here, that GitLab predominantly utilizes.
GitLab provides capabilities similar to GitHub, including repository hosting, collaboration tools, issue tracking, and continuous integration. Developers can utilize Git on their local machines to manage version control, and GitLab is used as a centralized platform for hosting repositories, facilitating collaboration, and managing the software development lifecycle. GitLab like GitHub is also free, however the paid version of GitLab is significantly more expensive than GitHub.
Snowtrack
Snowtrack boasts that it's a version control tool that is truly artist-first. The benefit of this version control is that its intuitive design has been carefully created by artists and creatives so it's simple to navigate, with no need for an IT department.
You can utilize both Snowtrack and SnowVCS to easily collaborate with others. Push and pull versions and share your progress without difficult conflicts and reconciles. The tool is designed for artists as well as pipeline builders. This means that Snowtrack’s version control tool has numerous visually appealing features, such as the file browser and an integrated 3D viewpoint that set it apart from other version control tools. Finally, Snowtrack is completely free to use, with no paid features.
Simul
Simul is a version control tool with collaboration features, specifically for Microsoft Word, streamlining the process of numerous people collaborating on Word documents. This tool aims to reduce the need to email your entire team documents.
With the Simul version control tool, any user can access the latest version of the Word document in one click. You can make changes to the document in both Word and Word online. By clicking save, a new version is instantly created in Simul and available to all collaborators, who can access any of the previous versions to see the changes that have been made. Pricing starts from $15 per month for an individual.
Mercurial
Mercurial is a distributed version control management tool, it can handle projects of any size and provides a simple interface. Mercurial is easy to learn and they provide an array of guides and overviews to ensure you quickly begin getting the most out of the tool.
In contrast to other typical version control tools, Mercurial is truly distributed. This gives each developer a local copy of the entire development history. The way it works is independent of network access or a central server. Also, you can utilize extensions to provide even more capabilities of the tool, both official and unofficial extensions are available. Finally, Mercurial is completely free to use.
Kactus
Kactus is a version control tool for designers. The tool, similar to GitHub and GitLab, utilizes Git as the version control tool. With Kactus you can experience all the advantages of Git via its simple design, enabling your team to focus on more important tasks such as your design.
Kactus is useful for software developers and designers who are reasonably inexperienced. They state that users of all experience levels will continue to gain and learn from Kactus’s features and capabilities but if they have to decide between advanced users or beginners then they prioritize beginners. With Kactus you can streamline your workflow and customise the tool as every pixel is open-source. Finally, the tool is free, however, there are paid versions that supply additional features.
AWS CodeCommit
AWS CodeCommit is a secure, scalable, fully managed version control tool that hosts private git repositories, similar to that of GitHub and GitLab. AWS CodeCommit is beneficial to individuals and organizations as it reduces the need for them to host, manage, and scale their version control infrastructure.
With this tool, you can easily collaborate with other team members by implementing workflows that include code reviews and feedback as default. Also, you can utilize your existing tools such as CI/CD systems and graphical clients. As well as this, with AWS CodeCommit you can receive notifications and alerts for events impacting your repositories. Finally, AWS CodeCommit has a free version but to get the most out of the tool paid subscription is required.
Bitbucket
Bitbucket is a service provided by Atlassian and is similar to multiple other version control tools in this list in that it's a git-based version control repository hosting service. The tool possesses Jira integration and built-in CI/CD.
With Bitbucket you can benefit from automation, the solutions' built-in CI/CD tool and pipelines can be used to produce automated workflows, to streamline your code review operations. As well as this, with the code reviews you can simply spot bugs within your code and rectify them before deployment. Finally, Bitbucket has a free basic plan, but paying for the service provides the most features and capabilities.
CVS
CVS (Concurrent Versions System) is a revision version control system. It’s a particularly popular version control tool due to it being open-source so provides a wide range of uses to multiple organizations with great cross-platform support.
Utilizing CVS client will hold a working version of the file up-to-date, and this only requires manual intervention when an edit conflict occurs. Varying branches of a project will be upheld by the tool and numerous developers can work on the same project parallelly. Finally, the tool is completely free to download.
Unity Version Control
Unity Version Control is a more specialized type of version control tool. The tool is a scalable, engine-agnostic, version control system for game development studios of any size. The tool provides enhanced workflows for artists and programmers and increased speed when working with larger files and binaries.
A great benefit of this tool is that it can work with any engine including Unreal, it can also be integrated with IDEs and DevOps tools such as Jira, Jenkins, and TeamCity. You can get up and running quickly with Unity Version Control as you can instantly establish cloud servers out of the box. Enabling your team to collaborate from anywhere in the world.
If you’ve enjoyed this article why not read our article on Change Management Tools or GitHub vs GitLab next?