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Asked: 2026-05-11T11:43:08+00:00

I’ve never used source control before (always used renaming files and other methods), so

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I’ve never used source control before (always used renaming files and other methods), so I was looking around for a relatively simple solution, to start me off with. I was looking for

  • something simple
  • with a GUI interface (along with a command line one)
  • relatively used
  • has books on the subject (most important)
  • can take Word files along in it as well

and I found TortoiseSVN. What would be the possible alternatives to it, considering the above ?

p.s. Yes, I know this has been asked to death, so if you know of an answered question, please, just refer me to it. I’m making this a community wiki, so it doesn’t get closed in the first minute, and then I’ll just probably delete it, so it doesn’t create redundancy.

Related: Source control system for single developer

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1 Answer

  1. For your criteria, I don’t think you’re going to find much better than TortoiseSVN. There are also a few other GUIs for subversion, mentioned below.

    • something simple: You’re probably not going to get much easier than subversion, once you get the basics down. You can also try SourceGear Vault, which is easy to get started with and free for one user. I’ve found Mercurial easy to use, for a distributed version control system, but if you want something simple it’s probably better to start with a non-distributed system.

    • with a GUI interface (along with a command line one): Subversion has TortoiseSVN, RapidSVN which is more of a traditional UI or AnkhSVN for Visual Studio integration. SourceGear Vault has a UI that mimics Visual Source Safe. Mercurial has TortoiseHg, another Explorer add-in but it’s not as mature as TortoiseSVN, along with other IDE integrations.

    • relatively used: You aren’t going to get more used than Subversion/TortoiseSVN. It has become the de-facto VCS of choice. Distributed tools (git, Mercurial) are becoming more popular, especially in open source, but still trails Subversion. You probably can’t go wrong with Subversion, git or Mercurial, as they have good followings.

    • has books on the subject (most important): There are online books for Subversion and Mercurial. I haven’t investigated Vault’s help but I’m sure there are also good sources available for Vault.

    • can take Word files along in it as well: TortoiseSVN is installed to do this, though I haven’t test it. You can assign diff programs by file type.

    Good Luck!

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