GitHub, GoogleCode, BitBucket are new generation online VCSs* or SCMs** with free source code hosting for project developers. Why these 3 ? Cause I had some free time and I tried them today.
Google Code - Project Hosting, caught my attention when some of the software I was downloading, was using this hosting. I first get to know of GitHub through Google ads. I was googling for information on Git, a new (then) and fast version control system. Since it was written by Linus Torvalds (yea, the Linux dude), of course I had to take a look at what the fuss is about.
That's the story of the first two, so what about BitBucket ? I love GitHub (nice interface, quick, clean, social, kitchen sink !) and everything, but the Git thing is still troubling me. While I was struggling to get used to git, I caught wind of Mercurial. As usual, I did some Googling and read up about Mercurial. At first glance, they look the same to me, and after some intense Googling. I came to this summary, Git is fast, and packs smaller repository, but lacks Windows usability. Mercurial is quick and easier to learn, and they have excellent Windows support through TortoiseHg (The Mercurial cousin to TortoiseCvs and TortoiseSVN). A plugin also enables Mercurial to push/pull Git repositories.
TortoiseHG itself was hosted and BitBucket, and I've been seeing BitBucket ads spamming all over my facebook ... so I decided to give it a try. (Yet another VCS hosting?)
Since it's hard to decide which is the better VCS, I thought I make it easier for myself. Let's try out the hosting. My requirement is simple. Since I needed the hosting for my private projects, it should be free, fast, and easy to use. Minus all the VCS technical issues, here's what I summarize from the hostings (I try to keep this simple, and skip features that they have in common ..) :-
GitHub: Git based. News feed from your favorite repositories, social aspect, and of course GIST ! They also keep track of the network traffic, and some eye candy graphs to display traffic statistics and stuffs. Free version doesn't allow private repositories. I also noticed that most programmers here favors Ruby, and web developments.
BitBucket: Mercurial based. Interface is nearly similar to GitHub, however, we can tell this is very developer oriented. The overview change logs are more detail, and provides more information about repository activities. The "Changeset" is similar to the timeline graphs in GitHub, except that the changes here are very detail. You can practically see the entire repository changelog here. It also allow for "Google Analytic" tracking for tracking network traffics. The free version allows for private repositories for up to 5 users. Developers here tends to favor Python, and Python frameworks like Django.
GoogleCode: Doesn't have most of the hanky panky things above. I included this in the review because it is the only one out of these 3 that allows for binary file uploads (Users can download compiled binaries instead of source code). It also supports both SVN and Mercurial. Google also allow you to "hide" the source tab. An of course this supports Google Analytic for your network traffics.
To summarize, I can say that GitHub is great, because of the beautiful interface and the "social" aspect making it fun to use. However, if you need a free and private repository, you might want to consider BitBucket. They look nearly the same, minus the newsfeed (If you look hard enough there might be more differences =p). Google Code hosting ? Well, it's free. Maybe you can host your back up repository here or just upload the binary here. =)
For now thou, I'm using both hosting with a "test" project.
Note: I still have projects hosted with SourceForge (old school ! ) and I haven't tried out the new interface (It's so blue now, I remember SourceForge being all red). Maybe I will do it when I have time in the future.
Note 2: CodePlex ? Should I ? I hate the .NET framework -.-
* Version control systems
** Software configuration management
Google Code - Project Hosting, caught my attention when some of the software I was downloading, was using this hosting. I first get to know of GitHub through Google ads. I was googling for information on Git, a new (then) and fast version control system. Since it was written by Linus Torvalds (yea, the Linux dude), of course I had to take a look at what the fuss is about.
That's the story of the first two, so what about BitBucket ? I love GitHub (nice interface, quick, clean, social, kitchen sink !) and everything, but the Git thing is still troubling me. While I was struggling to get used to git, I caught wind of Mercurial. As usual, I did some Googling and read up about Mercurial. At first glance, they look the same to me, and after some intense Googling. I came to this summary, Git is fast, and packs smaller repository, but lacks Windows usability. Mercurial is quick and easier to learn, and they have excellent Windows support through TortoiseHg (The Mercurial cousin to TortoiseCvs and TortoiseSVN). A plugin also enables Mercurial to push/pull Git repositories.
TortoiseHG itself was hosted and BitBucket, and I've been seeing BitBucket ads spamming all over my facebook ... so I decided to give it a try. (Yet another VCS hosting?)
Since it's hard to decide which is the better VCS, I thought I make it easier for myself. Let's try out the hosting. My requirement is simple. Since I needed the hosting for my private projects, it should be free, fast, and easy to use. Minus all the VCS technical issues, here's what I summarize from the hostings (I try to keep this simple, and skip features that they have in common ..) :-
GitHub: Git based. News feed from your favorite repositories, social aspect, and of course GIST ! They also keep track of the network traffic, and some eye candy graphs to display traffic statistics and stuffs. Free version doesn't allow private repositories. I also noticed that most programmers here favors Ruby, and web developments.
BitBucket: Mercurial based. Interface is nearly similar to GitHub, however, we can tell this is very developer oriented. The overview change logs are more detail, and provides more information about repository activities. The "Changeset" is similar to the timeline graphs in GitHub, except that the changes here are very detail. You can practically see the entire repository changelog here. It also allow for "Google Analytic" tracking for tracking network traffics. The free version allows for private repositories for up to 5 users. Developers here tends to favor Python, and Python frameworks like Django.
GoogleCode: Doesn't have most of the hanky panky things above. I included this in the review because it is the only one out of these 3 that allows for binary file uploads (Users can download compiled binaries instead of source code). It also supports both SVN and Mercurial. Google also allow you to "hide" the source tab. An of course this supports Google Analytic for your network traffics.
To summarize, I can say that GitHub is great, because of the beautiful interface and the "social" aspect making it fun to use. However, if you need a free and private repository, you might want to consider BitBucket. They look nearly the same, minus the newsfeed (If you look hard enough there might be more differences =p). Google Code hosting ? Well, it's free. Maybe you can host your back up repository here or just upload the binary here. =)
For now thou, I'm using both hosting with a "test" project.
Note: I still have projects hosted with SourceForge (old school ! ) and I haven't tried out the new interface (It's so blue now, I remember SourceForge being all red). Maybe I will do it when I have time in the future.
Note 2: CodePlex ? Should I ? I hate the .NET framework -.-
* Version control systems
** Software configuration management
8 comments:
You forgot Kiln :(
It's free for two users, and integrates with FogBugz, supports binary files and has a code review tool built in :-)
Kiln looks very nice, I will have to take a look at this one. Thanks for the tip !
+ for BitBucket
BitBucket support GIT as well...
This blog post was written before bitbucket offered Git hosting. =)
Change the background man, it's very h ard to read white on black.
Although i love github, bitbucket seems a better option to me for private repos since you don't have to pay. If the repo was opensource, i'd choose github without any doubts
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