A table of various SCM software and their support for requirements as listed on the mailing list by Mark Wedel.

| ^ CVS ^ SVN ^ Mercurial ^ Bzr ^ Darcs ^
^ Protocol | dedicated | webdav-based | http-based/ssh | http-based/sftp | http-based/email/ssh((requires wrapper script)) |
^ Learning curve from CVS((a bit subjective perhaps)) | none | low | low-medium | medium | high |
^ Key requirements | | | | | |
^ Network based access | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
^ Multiplatform | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes((windows only via Cygwin)) |
^ Access control lists | Yes | Yes | Yes((via SSH, or HTTP server permissions as of hg 0.9.1)) | Yes((via SSH)) | Yes((via SSH)) |
^ Read-only access to everyone | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
^ Supported by sourceforge or some other free hosting service | Yes | Yes | Depends((only if a free hosting service other than sf.net has sufficient web space with ssh)) | Yes((Launchpad.net or possibly somewhere with sufficient web space with ssh)) | Depends((only if a free hosting service other than sf.net has sufficient web space with ssh)) |
^ E-mail notification of commits | Yes | Yes | Yes((via standardly distributed extension)) | Yes((via plugin)) | Yes |
^ Ability to convert to CVS to whatever the new format is | N/A | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
^ Top Features: | | | | | |
^ Readily available/easily installable software | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No((written in Haskell)) |
^ Tracking of when merges are done | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
^ Good branch handling | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
^ Efficient use of resources (network bandwidth, cpu, etc) | Yes | Yes | Mostly((No lightweight checkout, you must use local branches (However I am currently working on a Mercurial extension to provide this regardless of if we use mercurial or not, so this limitation may no longer exist in the near future) )) | No((Too many separate http requests causing significant amounts of time establishing connections and DNS lookups)) | No |
^ Global revisioning | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
^ support for symbolic tagging within one repository | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
^ Other nice to have features: | | | | | |
^ Atomic checkins | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
^ Maximum ability to do SCCS operations without access to repository | No | Yes((limited to diff, unget, and status)) | Yes((via local branches)) | Yes((via local branches)) | Yes((via local branches)) |
^ good binary file handling | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
^ Ability to do local branches | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
^ Rename support | No | Yes | Partial((Merges don't follow renames, and logging does not report it))| Yes | Yes |
^ Web view of repository | Yes | Yes | Yes((builtin)) | Yes | Yes |
^ Possible to make a read-only cvs mirror | N/A | Yes((via 'tailor')) | Yes((via 'tailor')) | Yes((via 'tailor')) | Yes((via 'tailor')) |

 --- //[[alex_sch@telus.net|Alex Schultz]] 2006/08/14 15:57//