Top 10 Source Code Versioning and Management tools

February 03, 2024 | Editor: Michael Stromann


Source Code Versioning and Management tools allow to store software source code and control the changes to files made by multiple developers.
1
GitHub is the best place to share code with friends, co-workers, classmates, and complete strangers. Over seven million people use GitHub to build amazing things together. Free public repositories, collaborator management, issue tracking, wikis, downloads, code review, graphs and much more…
2
GitLab offers git repository management, code reviews, issue tracking, activity feeds and wiki’s. Enterprises install GitLab on-premise and connect it with LDAP and Active Directory servers for secure authentication and authorization. A single GitLab server can handle more than 25,000 users but it is also possible to create a high availability setup with a multiple active servers.
3
Bitbucket is a free code DVCS hosting site for Git and Mercurial. Manage your development with a hosted wiki, issue tracker and source code. Host, manage, and share Git and Mercurial repositories in the cloud. Free, unlimited private repositories for up to 5 developers give teams the flexibility to grow and code without restrictions.
4
Azure DevOps Server is a Microsoft product that provides version control, reporting, requirements management, project management, automated builds, testing and release management capabilities. It covers the entire application lifecycle and enables DevOps capabilities.
5
Assembla workspaces allow to accelerate software teams. Ticketing and issue management, Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Wiki, and other collaboration tools to accelerate development. Unite your team with a single activity stream view.
6
SourceForge is an Open Source community resource dedicated to helping open source projects be as successful as possible. We thrive on community collaboration to help us create a premiere resource for open source software development and distribution.
7
Google Developers is now the place to find all Google developer documentation, resources, events, and products. Project Hosting on Google Code provides a free collaborative development environment for open source projects.
8
RhodeCode Enterprise is the secure collaboration environment that works the way you do — with your workflows, your permissions, on your platforms. Safely tucked behind your firewall. Increased project security and permissions control along with real-time repository news feeds give managers a birds eye view on project progress and complete control over access to highly sensitive data, driving projects to come in on-time and under budget with no compromise on either productivity or security.
9
FishEye provides a read-only window into your Subversion, Perforce, CVS, Git, and Mercurial repositories, all in one place. Keep a pulse on everything about your code: Visualize and report on activity, integrate source with JIRA issues, and search for commits, files, revisions, or people.
10
Launchpad is a software collaboration platform that provides bug tracking, code hosting using Bazaar and Git, code reviews, translations, mailing lists, answer tracking and FAQs, specification tracking
11
Beanstalk allows designers and developers to store source code, track changes, and collaborate with their team through Subversion and Git version control. Imagine a single process to commit code, review with the team, and deploy the final result to your customers.
12
Subversion exists to be universally recognized and adopted as an open-source, centralized version control system characterized by its reliability as a safe haven for valuable data; the simplicity of its model and usage; and its ability to support the needs of a wide variety of users and projects, from individuals to large-scale enterprise operations.
13
StarTeam brings world-class agile change management to organizations with multiple repositories. Streamline workflows by connecting tools, processes and teams via a single repository. StarTeam maintains and tracks changes to source code, defects and features, to gain control over distributed and collaborative development. Maintain visibility and traceability across your software assets.

Latest news about Source Code Versioning and Management tools


2020. GitHub is now free for all teams



GitHub has recently announced that all of its core features are now available for free to all users. This includes unlimited private repositories with unlimited collaborators, catering to both individual users and teams engaged in commercial projects. Additionally, users can enjoy up to 2,000 minutes per month of free access to GitHub Actions, the platform's automation and CI/CD solution. While advanced features such as code owners and enterprise functionalities like SAML support still require a paid plan, the pricing structure has been revised. Teams can now upgrade to the Teams plan starting at $4 per month and user, compared to the previous cost of $9, while the Enterprise plan starts at $21 per month and user.


2018. GitHub business users now get access to public repos



GitHub, the code hosting service recently acquired by Microsoft, is introducing several new features for its business users, enhancing their ability to access public repositories on the platform. Previously, users on the hosted Business Cloud and self-hosted Enterprise environments lacked direct access to the vast array of public open-source repositories available on GitHub. However, with the latest update, this limitation is being addressed, enabling business users to extend their reach beyond their firewalls and actively engage and collaborate with the wider GitHub community. Additionally, GitHub now provides its business and enterprise users with a new unified search functionality, allowing them to explore both their internal repositories and open-source ones.




2018. Microsoft acquired GitHub



Microsoft has recently completed the acquisition of the widely used code sharing and collaboration platform, GitHub, for a whopping $7.5 billion. This cloud-based service enables companies of all sizes, including Microsoft, to collaboratively work on code. With 27 million software developers actively engaged in 80 million code repositories, GitHub has become an essential platform for various software development projects. Considering Microsoft's strategic focus on catering to software developers through cloud services, this acquisition aligns naturally with their vision, as spearheaded by CEO Satya Nadella. GitHub serves as a versatile tool utilized not only for coding Microsoft Windows applications but also for a wide range of projects, spanning from websites to iPhone apps. As a result of Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub, users can expect even deeper integration between Microsoft's developer tools and this platform, enabling a more seamless and enhanced experience.


2016. GitHub gets project management tool



GitHub has introduced its "most significant update" to its Git-based code hosting service. This update expands GitHub's offerings beyond code hosting and includes basic project management features reminiscent of a Kanban board. While GitHub has always supported integrations with various project management tools, this update introduces a built-in tool that allows users to organize cards, such as pull requests, issues, and notes, into customizable columns like "in-progress," "done," or any other preferred labels. Similar to platforms like Trello, users can easily drag and drop cards between columns to reflect changes in project status. This enhancement enables GitHub to provide a more comprehensive solution for project management in addition to its existing code hosting capabilities.


2016. Atlassian launches Bitbucket Pipelines



Atlassian has introduced Bitbucket Pipelines, a groundbreaking continuous delivery service seamlessly integrated into the Atlassian-hosted Bitbucket Cloud platform. This powerful feature enables developers to automate their code building and deployment process whenever they make updates to their Bitbucket repositories. As part of the beta phase, Bitbucket Pipelines is available at no cost for developers interested in exploring its capabilities. Additionally, Atlassian has made other notable updates, including the launch of Connect for JIRA Service Desk, which empowers third-party developers to create embeddable add-ons for this service. Moreover, Atlassian has made RADAR, its internal tool for generating API documentation, open source, aligning it with the specifications of the Open API Initiative.


2015. Atlassian merges Bitbucket and Stash developer services



Atlassian has been providing a range of developer services based on Git through its brands Bitbucket and Stash. These services cater to developers who require either cloud-based or on-premises code management solutions. However, the company is now consolidating these brands into a unified Bitbucket platform and introducing several new features for its Git-based services. Additionally, Atlassian is unveiling three significant enhancements for Bitbucket. The first feature is Git Mirroring, designed to simplify and accelerate the usage of Git for distributed teams. The second feature addresses a long-standing challenge of Git—support for large files. Lastly, Bitbucket introduces support for projects, enabling more streamlined organization of complex Git repositories. Notably, Bitbucket now competes with other enterprise Git services, including GitHub Enterprise. Even Microsoft has embraced Git support in its Team Foundation Server products.


2015. Collaboration platform for developers GitLab raises $4M



GitLab, the open source Git-based collaboration platform for developers, has announced that it successfully secured $4 million in Series A funding. The company provides a free community edition, a free SaaS version, and a paid enterprise edition of its service. With the newly acquired funding, GitLab aims to expedite its growth and expand its global operations. Git has become the go-to method for code management among numerous development teams. While GitHub stands as the most well-known Git-hosting service, there exist several competitors in this realm, each offering their own unique approach and user interface on top of the fundamental hosted Git concept. Atlassian, for instance, provides both free and paid Git hosting services. What sets GitLab apart from some of these competitors is its strong emphasis on its open source solution.


2015. Version control service GitHub raises $250M



GitHub, the widely-used software development collaboration and version control service built upon the popular open-source Git tool, has successfully raised an impressive $250 million in funding. The company intends to utilize this new capital infusion to accelerate its growth trajectory and expand its sales and engineering teams, a common strategy for companies following fundraising initiatives. Git has undoubtedly emerged as a de facto version control system for numerous startups, with GitHub leading the pack among companies that essentially provide Git as a service. While Atlassian, Microsoft, GitLab, and others offer similar services, both cloud-hosted and on-premises, GitHub has unquestionably garnered the lion's share of attention in recent years. GitHub reports a current user base of approximately 10 million individuals actively collaborating on over 25 million projects (a significant increase from 10 million users in January 2014). However, considering GitHub offers free accounts, it remains unclear how many of these users are paying subscribers (with pricing starting at $5/month).


2015. Code management service Bitbucket opens to third-party extensions



Bitbucket, Atlassian's code management service similar to GitHub, is receiving a significant update this week. The new feature, called Connect for Bitbucket, allows third-party tools to seamlessly integrate their applications directly into the Bitbucket service. Atlassian emphasizes that this integration empowers developers to access all the necessary information for code deployment in a single location, eliminating the need for constant switching between disjointed tools. According to the company, no other product on the market offers this level of integration within the product's user interface. The launch partners for this feature encompass a range of services, including code analytics platforms such as StiltSoft and bitHound, cloud IDEs like Codeanywhere and Codio, and Sourcegraph's code search tool. Currently, there are approximately a dozen available plug-ins, providing users with expanded capabilities and a more streamlined workflow within Bitbucket.


2015. Google discontinues Google Code



Google Code, another Google service, is set to be shut down as Google believes it has been surpassed by alternative platforms. The closure of Google Code is primarily justified by the increasing prevalence of "spam or abuse" among the projects hosted on the platform, placing a heavy burden on administrative efforts dedicated to managing such issues. In a blog post on its Open Source Blog, Google acknowledges the evolving landscape since the establishment of Google Code in 2006, when it aimed to provide a reliable and stable project hosting site. The company now recognizes that developers have migrated to "better" services, notably GitHub, which has become a favored platform for developers and even prompted Google to relocate many of its own open source projects to where the developer community thrives.


2014. GitHub Enterprise now works on Amazon Web Services



The latest release of code repository software, GitHub Enterprise 2.0, introduces the capability to leverage the service's virtual machines to establish a highly scalable version of GitHub's services on Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing platform provided by Amazon. This update encompasses various features, regardless of whether it is hosted on AWS or any other platform. One significant enhancement is the ability for companies to utilize their existing single sign-on solution with GitHub. They can now employ LDAP or SAML compatible solutions to achieve this integration. Furthermore, the update introduces security audit logs, enabling administrators to closely monitor user activities and facilitate auditing of account, team, and repository access over time.


2014. Enterprise code management service RhodeCode get $3.5M funding



The Berlin-based company, RhodeCode, which specializes in behind-the-firewall application lifecycle management, has successfully secured $3.5 million in funding. Initially positioned as a direct competitor to platforms like GitHub, RhodeCode realized that its primary customer base consisted of large enterprises, including the U.S. Navy and Department of Energy. These organizations were hesitant to store their valuable code in the public cloud. As a result, RhodeCode made the strategic decision to discontinue its software-as-a-service offering and shift its focus towards the behind-the-firewall RhodeCode Enterprise product. This change allows the company to cater specifically to the needs of enterprises seeking secure and private code management solutions.


2014. ZenHub helps engineering teams manage projects inside GitHub



Other companies are now capitalizing on the popularity of GitHub by developing services designed to enhance the platform. One such project is ZenHub, which aims to streamline and expedite workflows on GitHub. ZenHub offers teams a project management service that seamlessly integrates with GitHub, offering features such as Trello-like drag-and-drop task boards, convenient file uploads for any file type (as opposed to GitHub's default limitation to image files), and +1 buttons for quick feedback on commits, pull requests, suggestions, and comments. While primarily targeted at developers, the user-friendly interface of ZenHub also enables business users to efficiently manage their workflows within GitHub, potentially eliminating the need for additional third-party management tools.


2014. Atlassian brings Stash to large enterprises



Stash, the code management software by Atlassian designed for Git, originally catered to small teams. However, Atlassian has now introduced Stash Data Center, a Git solution tailored for large enterprises. Unlike the regular Stash service, Stash Data Center is capable of operating on a cluster instead of a single server. This enhancement allows Stash to effortlessly support up to 10,000 developers. Stash Data Center maintains the same interface and functionality as the current version, ensuring a seamless transition for its users. They may observe reduced slowdowns, faster compilation times, and minimal downtime, while their daily workflows remain unaffected. Atlassian expects that Stash Data Center users will deploy the service within their own clusters, protected by firewalls. Additionally, there are plans to enable Stash Data Center to operate on public clouds such as AWS in the future.

Editor: Michael Stromann
Michael is an expert in IT Service Management, IT Security and software development. With his extensive experience as a software developer and active involvement in multiple ERP implementation projects, Michael brings a wealth of practical knowledge to his writings. Having previously worked at SAP, he has honed his expertise and gained a deep understanding of software development and implementation processes. Currently, as a freelance developer, Michael continues to contribute to the IT community by sharing his insights through guest articles published on several IT portals. You can contact Michael by email stromann@liventerprise.com