AnkhSVN versus VisualSVN [closed]

Question

I currently use AnkhSVN to integrate subversion into Visual Studio. Is there any reason I should switch to VisualSVN?

AnkhSVN is free (in more than one sense of the word) while VisualSVN costs $50. So right there unless I'm missing some great feature of VisualSVN I don't see any reason to switch.

Carvel

It might be handy to know the versions you where comparing here – Ducat

Just interesting: what VisualSVN features you're missing after switching to AnkhSVN? – Mediaeval

VisualSVN now provides the community license. It allows you to use VisualSVN for free on non-domain computers. – Kare

AnhkSVN doesn't provide the concept of source control on folders, since VisualStudio SCC doesn't. I just spent (almost) a week giving AnhkSVN a shot, but ultimately the folder icons and ability to commit from a folder down are too essential to do without (granted, I have over 60 projects in one solution). I'm back to VisualSVN, which also uses TortoiseSVN for most dialogs -- Tortoise itself is great and this also means I have the same user experience from both Explorer and VisualStudio. – Squab

Answer 1

I used VisualSVN until Ankh hit 2.0, and ever since, I've abandoned VisualSVN. Ankh has surpassed VisualSVN in functionality, in my mind, and all the 1.x perf and integration issues are gone.

Zwieback

Answer 2

I recently tried Ankh but quickly switched back to VisualSVN. Because:

• Better commit dialog (use UI of tortoise)
• No refresh problems (which i had using ankh) Imho visual svn is easilty worth its money

Tameratamerlane

Answer 3

For me, VisualSVN is pretty, but useless. AnkhSvn on the other hand, after it came in v2 as an scc provider, it works very good. VisualSVN tries to think for you, which is not an good thing, the user should be the controller, not the software.

Jamshedpur

Answer 4

The main thing is that VisualSVN uses TortoiseSVN for nearly all of its UI. So you only really have to set up one client (preferred diff viewer, etc), and you can take advantage of things like the same "Previous messages" button on the Commit dialog, whether you're committing from Explorer or Visual Studio.

Spirant

The concept of VisualSVN is clever, but when it starts to outsmarts you, it have to stop. What is anoying me is that it want to put every single file in an projectfolder in the svn repository, but it so happens that I want to have files there, not for svn to have.. – Jamshedpur

Whenever it's done this I simply right-click those file(s) and revert the add. – Spirant

IMHO this annoyance is not introduced by VisualSVN, it is because of the basic assumption of SVN or CVS in general, that everything in a repository is meant to be versioned. If you need an exception from this rule, you can tell SVN about this by adding an ignore-pattern to that folder and you are done. This way SVN will also not bug you in the future to add this file. – Garnettgarnette