Comparison of Subversion clients

Subversion has its own command-line client. Other clients are available, which are perhaps easier or more intuitive to use in different scenarios. Often, people have several clients installed, and use each for different tasks.

A large list of third-party Subversion clients is available at: http://subversion.tigris.org/links.html#clients

Tortoise SVN is a Windows shell extension, which gives feedback on the state of versioned items by adding overlays to the ICONS in the Windows Explorer. Repository commands can be executed from the enhanced context menu provided by Tortoise.

Some programmers prefer to have a client integrated within their development environment. Again, visual feedback of the state of versioned items is provided, and repository commands are added to the menus of the development environment. Examples of this approach are AnkhSVN and VisualSVN for use with Microsoft Visual Studio, and Subclipse for use with Eclipse.

It is common to expose Subversion via Webdav using the Apache web server. In this case, any Webdav client can be used, but the functionality provided this way is limited.

Subversion clients feature matrix

Name

Programming language / Toolkit

Operating system

Licence

Integration

Multilingual

Network protocols

| AnkhSVN1

C#

Microsoft Windows

Apache License

Microsoft Visual Studio

| eSvn2

C++ / Qt

Linux, UNIX, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows

GPL

GUI, Standalone (like WinCVS, Cervisia)

http, svn

| kdesvn3

C++ / Qt

Linux, etc.

GPL

KDE

| Qt commit tool4

Python / Qt

Linux, UNIX, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows

GPL

| QSvn5

C++ / Qt

Linux, UNIX, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows

GPL

GUI, Standalone (like WinCVS)

| RapidSVN6

C++ / wxWidgets

Linux, UNIX, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Solaris operating system, and many more.

GPL

GUI, Standalone

Unicode, Many

| SmartSVN7

Java

Any with a JRE

Freeware with commercial upgrade

| Subclipse8

Java

Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows

EPL

Eclipse

http, https, svn, svn+ssh, file

| Subcommander9

C++ / Qt

Linux, UNIX, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows

GPL

| Subversive10

Java

Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows

EPL

Eclipse

http, https, svn, svn+ssh, file

| SVNCOM11

ACTIVE-X Control / Com Object

Microsoft Windows

Open Source

IIS / Windows Scripting Host

http, https, svn, svn+ssh, file, com, active-x

| SVN WorkBench12

Python / wxWidgets

Linux, UNIX, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows

Apache License

| svnX13

Mac OS X

GUI

| TkCVS14

Tcl / Tk

Linux, UNIX, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows

GPL

| TortoiseSVN15

Microsoft Windows (32/64bit)

GPL

Windows Shell (Explorer)

28 languages

http, https, svn, svn+ssh, file

| VisualSVN16

Microsoft Windows (32/64bit)

Commercial

Microsoft Visual Studio

See also

  • Version Control