Alternative to SourceSafe in a Commercial Environment?

Jim the Bad asks: "After Visual SourceSafe inexplicably corrupted itself one time too many, my Boss has asked me to evaluate the alternatives. This site lists some alternatives, and SourceForge is a commercial product that might suit. Are there any more? It must be rock solid, run on Windows and it must be possible to migrate existing SourceSafe databases. Developer Studio integration is also very desirable. What product would you recommend?"

Comments

Went from VSS - CVS

[HalfFlat]

We used Visual Source Safe at the beginning of our project (about 10 programmers), despite calls for using CVS instead. VSS did not last three weeks. It is the embarassment of the revision control world. It is Just Broken.

Note that Microsoft most certainly do not eat their own dog food. At least, they certainly did not then (1998-1999).

We threw out VSS. Moved to CVS, despite losing Visual Studio integration and past revision history. In fact, we just used CVS from a command window. It worked, and worked well.

There are commercial and free products now which probably fit your requirements. But if you can't find one, you still ought to ditch VSS and go with something that actually works. It doesn't matter how convenient your source control system is if it doesn't actually control it, or like VSS, actively corrupts it.

Re:Went from VSS - CVS

[inepom01]

You didn't have to lose your history or anything. There's a perl script, found here that will migrate your stuff. It is quite nice, and works with revision histories and all. The vss2cvs.pl script will migrate your stuff and another script (don't remember which) will migrate your revision histories.

Bitkeeper

[mTor]

Give Bitkeeper a try: http://www.bitkeeper.com/

I use it and I'm very happy with it. Heck, even Linux kernel is maintained with it.

SourceForge is not what you are looking for

[halfnerd]

Or at least i think so. If I understand this correctly then sourceforge is just like sourceforge.net - a hideously large database of projects. I don't think that's what you are looking for. CVS is tested and good. But it has some problems. Go check out subversion too - subversion.tigris.org, it's a cvs-like tool that has fixed many of cvs' inconveniences.
and BitMovers BitKeeper is used for the Linux-kernel, so it has proven to be very reliable and extendable too.

Gforge

[R0]

Gforge is an opensource fork of Sourceforge (What irony?). You can buy support for it too.

FreeVCS

[apocamok]

At work we switched to Freevcs after experiencing one too many VSS database-corruptions.

FreeVCS is a free (as in beer) client/server VCS, using a relational database such as Firebird or Microsoft SQL Server. It is a stand-alone product, and as such offers no integration to Visual Studio (although some integration to Borland Delphi exists)

The original author has stopped development and released the source to the open-source project JediCVS.
JediVCS have yet to produce a release, so for now stick with FreeVCS.

RE: Alternatives to Visual Source Safe

[iid_iunknown]

I have always preferred Rational ClearCase over VSS and have also used a new product from SourceGear called SourceGear Vault which claims to be a compelling replacement for VSS. Well, guess what? They're right. Not only is it a better SCC, but it also has tight integration with both VS *AND* the classic remote access products from SourgeGear (ie. SourceOffSite) for your offsite development staff. Both are recommended, but the Rational tools are a bit pricey for smaller shops. I believe that a 5-node version of SourceGear Vault is priced around $599 (if you already owen SQL Server), or $999 (which includes a SQL Server license). Take a look at SourceGear Vault

Re:A coupla things

[Circuit Breaker]

I haven't seen anything that works as well as VSS

Try Jalindi Igloo (search google for it). It integrates with VS6 as well as, if not better, than VSS. And Tortoise is simply the best UI for version control I have ever used.

MKS Source Integrity

[marko_ramius]

http://www.mks.com/products/sie

Secure, stable, fast, multi-platform, good integration with issue tracking system.

cvs - tortoise - jalindi igloo

[patazathoth]

cvs as the engine, you can install it on windows or on a cheap linux box (I prefer the later).

tortoise as the gui, it integrates in explorer directly, no need for a seperate program or GUI it is simply intuitive.

Jalindi Igloo as the dev studio integration. I've use it for a while and it was working as well if not better than VSS.

I've used vss for 6 years (during my redmond era) and had allright success with it but had to check the integrity of the database and we had to use backup a few time.

We started using cvs when OSX came out and had nothing but success with it. It has its limitation but it is straight foward and I even think it is Open Source (correct me if I am wrong) so if you don't like something, just change it!

Re:Perforce

[CompVisGuy]

I have used Perforce (as a developer, rather than as a respository admin).

I found Perforce to be an excellent VCS; it integrated very well with our workflow -- once your developers know the basics, the system works very well. As far as I know, it has many advantages over MS's SourceSafe -- try and stay away from the MS stuff if you can.

There is a Windows GUI for Perforce, and it works well under all UNICES, Windows and others.

I strongly recommend Perforce. Simple as that.

Having said that, Perforce isn't free, and CVS is. I currently use CVS and am reasonably happy with it. The TortoiseCVS Windows client makes integrating the use of the VCS into workflow easy. However, CVS does have some problems, and the Subversion project is trying to solve these. I think most people find learning CVS a steeper learning curve than learning Perforce.

Bottom line: If you can afford Perforce, go with that. If you are prepared to live with CVS's steeper learning curve and problems (these are minor -- CVS is the de facto standard for VCS among the Open Source software movement), or want cost free version control, go with CVS.