Comparing Subversion (SVN) and CVSNT

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Last Modified: Wednesday, August 22, 2018

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Comparing Subversion (SVN) and CVSNT
CVSNT is the most widely supported, feature rich and secure CVS Server and Client available today on Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, HPUX, and Linux. CVSNT has been progressing through development, testing and production releases for six years and we are currently shipping version 2.8.
	March Hare Software provide CVS Professional Support and CVSNT worldwide. CVSNT development began as simply a port of CVS 1.10 and then 1.11 to Windows, however it quickly became clear that vital new security and features were being added to CVSNT that CVS users on all platforms required. CVSNT then became available for Unix as well as Windows and now supports most of the active software development platforms available. March Hare Software (UK) in partnership with the CVSNT development community are continuing to develop CVSNT; adding features, improving security and increasing the number of supported platforms. For a quick comparison¹ of some of the advantages of using CVSNT over CVS please see the panel to the right. » Contact us for more information
Pricing
	CVSNT Professional Support and CVSNT are open source, free software licensed under the GNU General Public License. March Hare Software provide Installation, training, support and builds for OS/400 V4R5, V5R1 and later to Support Multi Site Plus and Support Enterprise customers. Download Support Brochure Download Support Price Guide


¹This comparison is based on material collected from the Subversion project as of May 20, 2005 at http://subversion.tigris.org/ and http://subversion.tigris.org/roadmap.html. It does not represent an independant or exhaustive comparison between CVSNT and Subversion. We have specifically excluded subjects that are promoted as features of Subversion that it is our opinion are limitations or where a comparison cannot be directly made between the products. Whilst a lot of time has passed since 2005, Subversion remains fundamentally the same - this comparison is still considered to be accurate, eg: subversion commits are still not atomic, and still does not permit reserved checkouts.

Comparison

Feature¹		CVSNT	SVN
Server
	Supports authentication via Microsoft Active Directory or SSH (windows only)	YES	NO
	Most current CVS features.	YES	YES
	Renames are versioned.	YES	YES
	File meta-data.	YES	YES
	Commits are truly atomic	YES	YES
	Does not require Apache/Standalone server	YES	YES
	Can be tunnelled over SSH	YES	YES
	Efficient storage of binary files using binary deltas	YES	YES
	optional locking (reserved checkouts).	YES	NO
	true rename support (not based on copy/delete)	YES	NO
	repository-level ACLs	YES	NO
	pluggable server-side diff programs	YES	NO
	Set enforced protocols allow server to lock out clients connecting over insecure protocols or using insecure/inefficient options.	YES	NO
	Easily remove protocols (without recompile)	YES	NO
	Branch ACLs can be used to restrict access	YES	NO
	More sophisticated / extra triggers available e.g. postcommit. Triggers also available via COM/DLL/.so interfaces	YES	NO
	Supports Unicode files with additional keyword expansion switches	YES	NO
	Server-side default options (cvsrc)	YES	NO
	UTF-8 (Unicode) Server.	YES	NO
	Multi Lingual filenames suport.	YES	YES
	Rendevous Support	YES	NO
	Binary availability for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris	YES	YES
	Binary availability for HPUX	YES	NO
	Client support for IBM iSeries (AS/400) OS/400	YES	NO
Windows Server
	Configurable with Windows Control Panel	YES	NO
	Compatible with NTFS ACL's for using permissions based on Windows username or group.	YES	NO
	Triggers also available via COM and DLL interfaces	YES	NO
	Uses native file access	YES	NO
	Crashdump handler	YES	NO
	Windows native MSI installer	YES	NO
Client
	Smart Merge (merge tracking) using MergePoint	YES	NO
	Supports Unicode files with additional keyword expansion switches	YES	NO
	Version OSX resource fork extensions keyword expansion switches	YES	NO