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I am a lone programmer working on many .Net projects. I work alone and I didn't used version control till now. Just recently I learned the benefits of using version control. As I have three machines I work on, keeping a sync version of a project sometimes proves to be too much. So, now I am planning to use subversion as my version control server.

Having said that, I read in many threads, blogs etc about the benefits of using version control for a single developer. I agree with most of them but one thing most of them didn't discussed was, how to use SVN without actually depending on one of your particular system to be the server. The reason I want to do this because all my systems are almost never in "always on" condition. So if I host my repositories in my main desktop, I might not be able to work on my laptop if my desktop is turned off (or am I missing something here?)

Thats why, I want to know that can I host my subversion repositories in my GoDaddy shared hosting account and access them from the three computers I have?

Or alternatively, are there any free (and fast) online svn repositories I can use? I am trying not to use any gui clients for now as I want to clear my basics first with svn, but later I am planning to use TortoiseSVN as my client.

Yogesh
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  • I've been a similar situation and dumped SVN due to the lack of decent free hosting. I've been through unfuddle, wush and others but I'd recommend switching to mercurial and using http://www.bitbucket.org (http://www.hginit.com if you haven't used it before). – Chris S Jan 27 '11 at 09:29
  • I too dropped SVN. Now I am using fossil with DropBox and it is working pretty good. Mercurial is also good, but I love the simplicity of fossil. It is awesome if you ask me. It is fast and it is almost a year and I never had any problems with it. – Yogesh Jan 27 '11 at 09:37
  • FWIW xp-dev.com is the usual place for devs to have a subversion repo. It's great - well almost everyone uses it – Fattie Mar 24 '17 at 13:29

6 Answers6

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First, GoDaddy does not allow for Subversion to be installed. It's a seperate service that runs to provide a web-like interface - not a hosting account.

With that said, there are a few free versions still out there.

I vote for CodePlex as it's free, and uses Subversion (through the TFS hook), as well as giving you forums, documentation areas, etc.:

http://www.codeplex.com

Additionally, Google Code is also subversion-based (I kind of like the CodePlex community better though):

http://code.google.com

If you want something more private, I recommend Unfuddle as they have a free version. Just don't check in big files.

http://www.unfuddle.com

Another private one is Project Locker:

http://www.projectlocker.com

Lastly, I highly recommend picking up and reading a Subversion book on practical uses of Subverison, organizating your multiple projects, and proper branch/merge management.

Version control with SubVersion

You can also read it for free here: http://svnbook.red-bean.com/ But, it's a very long dry read. I highly recommend picking up the book to thumb through down the road.

  • Updated 2010-12-06: Added CodePlex now that they have SubVersion.
  • Updated 2017-06-05: Google Code shut down in 2016 and Microsoft CodePlex is shutting down in 2017. Those were the two major companies sponsoring SVN; and, they both have the same reason for the shutdown: https://GitHub.com which is Git based.
eduncan911
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    In addition to the many free hosting services, there are several such as wush.net which has hosting plans for just a few dollars per month. In exchange for that, you get tech support, which easily pays for itself the first time you run into some issue (especially for someone new to Subversion). – RjOllos Nov 10 '09 at 07:14
  • @RjOllos: Wow, someone is able to offer tech support for svn on a cheap account? That's impressive. – eduncan911 Nov 10 '09 at 18:09
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    For the record, ProjectLocker also offers tech support via e-mail and a support ticketing system on free accounts as well as paid accounts. – brokenbeatnik Dec 06 '10 at 12:02
  • CodePlex is for open source and I checked ProjectLocker and that is not free. – Satya Prakash Dec 18 '13 at 18:11
  • Thanks @Fattie. Removed it. When I wrote this back in 2009, I was a die hard SVN fan even though GitHub was rising up. I have since switched exclusively to Git around 2013 myself. It is time. – eduncan911 Jun 05 '17 at 07:16
  • no worries @eduncan911. it's amazing how these answers stick around for a long time right? Cheers. – Fattie Jun 05 '17 at 12:49
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I'm not sure about GoDaddy, but you shouldn't have any issues developing in a disconnected mode with Subversion. As for other hosts, you could try ProjectLocker.

Andy Gaskell
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I use assembla for my personal projects. Its free and has been good so far.

apnerve
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You may want to look into other version control systems which aren't based on a central server. Git is the most popular choice these days.

Also, if your project is opensource GitHub is free and does all the trouble for you. It will cost if you host commercial projects.

Update:

Just to clarify my response, the way i see he's asking 2 questions, first is asking how to use subversion in his non-centralized environment OR use free hosted alternatives.

He seems to be just starting with version control, and doesn't know too many other options. I'm entirely fine with him using a free subversion hosted service, i just mentioned an alternative who natively does what he was pretending to do in the first place with his 3 computers and subversion.

This is not a comment like "omg! your [scm] sucks!!11!, just use my loved [anotherscm]!!"

Update: (response to @Yogesh)

Actually the fact that is "merge based" is a what makes it able to work decentralized and full featured while offline, it makes a breeze working with branches because actually each working copy is a branch, while branching in Subversion is a pain. I don't work too much with binaries, but by reading a bit don't think Git has much problems with them (1 | 2).

Git is not better or worse than Subversion, it depends entirely on your needs. Again, your pick, i was just pointing that Git could be a good fit to your needs, even if you're not in a team.

Community
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pablasso
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    He asked for Subversion, not Git. – eduncan911 Nov 10 '09 at 05:42
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    Yes pablasso. You are correct. I am just starting with version control and still looking at options. But Git is merge based and too many binary files can play spoilsport (or what I heard). Thats why I am try to avoid Git based scm like github. Is that true? – Yogesh Nov 11 '09 at 04:50
  • Git **has** problems with large repos and binaries of any size. BTW, the git wiki page you refer to seems to have a lot of mistakes according to http://svnvsgit.com/ – bahrep Jan 08 '16 at 11:08
  • @bahrep I know I didn't provided a whole lot of sources, but at least it's something unless your assertion that just dismisses binaries on git without any reference. – pablasso Jan 12 '16 at 22:46
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    @pablasso what kind of sources? Git is a content tracker for your source code and does not support versioning binaries by design. There are some attempts to fix this like 'git-lfs' but they don't really make any difference. Git does not support binaries in its repo. – bahrep Jan 12 '16 at 22:55
  • Of course Git supports binaries, is just that is not efficient if your talking about use cases like the gaming industry has (many files and huge files) because Git will store several full versions of said files. But that's easily solved by tried and tested projects like git-annex. I'm not saying it's the best SCM for binaries-only repos, but it's dumb to say it doesn't support them. – pablasso Jan 13 '16 at 02:19
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I am a lone coder that uses subversion. I was unable to use shared hosting to host my code, but it was not that hard to setup apache and subversion on my xp machine at home. I then bought a cheap domain at godaddy.com that pointed to my home.

Subversion for Windows with Apache server

Fattie
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Aaron
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  • Your xp machine needs to be on when somebody access your subversion server and that is not what I want. I do not want to depend on any of my systems to be on all the time. – Yogesh Nov 10 '09 at 05:56
  • Yes, I have a box in the closet that I run at all times for my ccnet and svn. Sorry, missed that part about not hosting it on any of your systems. – Aaron Nov 10 '09 at 06:02
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    You can also install the free (as in beer) VisualSVN server. You can use that server with any (free or not) client. – Bert Huijben Nov 10 '09 at 10:22
  • He stated that he does not want to depend on any machine being "on" at all times. e.g. a server. – eduncan911 Nov 10 '09 at 18:11
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https://riouxsvn.com/ provides a free subversion hosting, and very simple to use. It is very suitable for personal use or small scale projects.

Soundar
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