Mercurial is a fast, lightweight Source Control Management system designed for efficient handling of very large distributed projects.
Mercurial’s major design goals include high performance and scalability, decentralized, fully distributed collaborative development, robust handling of both plain text and binary files, and advanced branching and merging capabilities, while remaining conceptually simple.
The software includes an integrated stand-alone web interface.
Mercurial is used by a number of large projects that require fast, reliable distributed revision control, such as Xen, OpenSolaris, Python and MoinMoin.
Key Features
- Extremely high-performance delta-compressed storage scheme.
- Scales very easily.
- Lightweight.
- Optimized for disk layout and access efficiency.
- Complete cross-indexing of files and changesets.
- O(1) delta-compressed file storage and retrieval scheme.
- Bandwidth and CPU efficient HTTP and SSH sync protocols.
- High-speed HTTP-based network merge protocol.
- Complete cross-indexing of files and changesets for efficient exploration of project history.
- Robust SHA1-based integrity checking and append-only storage model.
- Distributed development model supports unlimited numbers of developers.
- Allows arbitrary merging between developer branches.
- Doesn’t significantly degrade with large numbers of files or changesets.
- No waiting for locks.
- SHA1 integrity checking on repository data.
- Append-only storage model with transaction journalling.
- Fast full-repository verification.
- Convenient backup.
- Most commands are familiar to users of CVS and other systems.
- Built-in command help.
- Integrated stand-alone web interface.
- Works with various GUI tools.
- Small Python codebase.
- Easy to customize.
Website: www.mercurial-scm.org
Support: Documentation
Developer: Matt Mackall
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
Mercurial is written in Python, C, and Rust. Learn Python with our recommended free books and free tutorials. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Revision Control Tools | |
|---|---|
| Git | Used in high profile open source projects, most notably the Linux kernel |
| Jujutsu | Powerful version control system for software projects |
| Mercurial | Fast, lightweight Source Control Management system |
| Subversion | General system that can be used to manage any collection of files |
| Darcs | An advanced revision control system |
| Fossil | Distributed version control system |
| dat | Distributed data community for the next generation Web |
| Sapling | Scalable, user-friendly source control system |
| Pijul | Sound and fast distributed version control system |
| CVS | Concurrent Versions System |
| Breezy | Decentralized revision control system supporting Bazaar and Git formats |
| Monotone | Especially strong in its support of a diverge/merge workflow |
| Game of Trees | Prioritizes ease of use and simplicity over flexibility |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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