CVS vs SVN

On this page, we are trying to collect argument pro and contra both staying with CVS, and switching to SVN. Behind each "argument" is a list of people who agree that this particular argument is valid. We currently have no other realistic choices (since SF.net offers us exactly those two), so I am not comparing more systems here.

Pro Subversion

• Support for versioned renames/moves (impossible with CVS): Fingolfin, Ender
• Supports directories natively: It's possible to remove them, and they are versioned: Fingolfin, Ender
• File properties are versioned; no more "executable bit" hell: Fingolfin
• Overall revision number makes build versioning and regression testing much easier: Ender, Fingolfin
• Atomic commits: Fingolfin
• Intuitive (directory-based) branching and tagging: Fingolfin
• Easier hook scripts (pre/post commit, etc): SumthinWicked (I use it for Doxygen after commits)
• Prevents accidental committing of conflicted files: Salty-horse, Fingolfin
• Support for custom 'diff' command: Fingolfin
• Offline diffs, and they're instant: sev

Pro CVS

• Lots of people know how to use it: Fingolfin
• Lots of documentation available: Fingolfin

Contra Subversion

• Takes up twice as much disk space: Fingolfin
• We need to put efforts into transferring repository to it: sev
  • Strictly spoken, the conversion is easy (it's a one-button click in the admin panel of SF.net), we only make it hard by our wish to manually fix problems in the existing CVS repository (says Fingolfin)

Contra CVS

• No support for versioned renames/moves (CVS repos hackery is not even remotely a replacement): Fingolfin
• No proper support for directories (in particular, deleting them, but also renames/moves): Fingolfin
  • I want to stress that it was a major hassle in history of our project: sev

See Also

• Subversion for CVS Users - Lists the major differences. Taken from the svn book