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I'm writing an essay, and would like to have some empiric evidence, perhaps longitudinal data where the popularity of these technologies is compared over a period of some years.

Are there any statistics that show the popularity of Git versus SVN?

Thomas Owens
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Jakob
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    http://www.google.com/trends/?q=git,svn . Not near perfect, because particularly "git" has other uses too, but all popularity measures are more or less BS anyway. – Joonas Pulakka Feb 21 '12 at 11:47
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    possible duplicate of [Empirical Evidence of Popularity of Git and Mercurial](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/128851/empirical-evidence-of-popularity-of-git-and-mercurial) – Mark Booth Feb 21 '12 at 15:10
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    Defining popularity is tough. You could do [something like this](http://www.google.com/trends/?q=git,%20subversion)... – Mr. S Feb 21 '12 at 11:54
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    In addition, [this graph](http://www.google.com/trends/?q=git,+subversion,+svn&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0) indicates a much smaller decline in "svn" than is shown in "subversion". Also, the algorithm is detecting "subversion" as meaning "corruption" or "undermining loyalty" rather than the version control system. I'd suspect that "svn" is more appropriate to the development tool. – Thomas Owens Feb 21 '12 at 12:06
  • @ThomasOwens SVN is also a stock ticker, which is what Google mentions [when you search for just "svn".](http://www.google.com/trends/?q=svn&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0) Further "git" means "go" in Turkish and I think most of the results from that search are related to that (note the high use of the term in Turkey versus everywhere else). I'm not really convinced this is a good way to compare them. – Kris Harper Feb 21 '12 at 12:16
  • I massaged the terms a little and [came up with this](http://www.google.com/trends/?q=git+pull,+subversion+svn&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=1). Definitely not perfect, but I think it gives a rough idea of scale. – Mr. S Feb 21 '12 at 22:25
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    @Mr.S adding git svn as a term would suggest that almost every page involved contains both so I thin kthis is still inconclusive – jk. Feb 22 '12 at 12:11
  • @jk.I didn't - one term searched for was "git pull", what I'd consider to be one of the more popular commands, and the other was "subversion svn" – Mr. S Feb 23 '12 at 11:53
  • No I meant "git svn" is almost as popular as both "git pull" or "subversion svn" and the second highest related term is "git vs svn" so all we know for sure is lots of people are comparing them – jk. Jun 18 '13 at 08:49
  • Why choose git and svn instead of, say, mercurial and cvs? – mouviciel Apr 23 '14 at 08:33
  • @mouviciel - it's a good point - maybe you can add to the answer? The question was asked over 2 years ago, that's the most immediate answer to your question. – Jakob May 19 '14 at 13:55
  • Any data looking at only what "the industry" uses might be biased, as it takes time to migrate a VCS (for large projects) and many companies don't think it worth the effort (and get stuck in the past). So data will be biased towards the older technology. Usage is not the same as popularity, this is important to note. – Zelphir Kaltstahl Sep 22 '16 at 11:11
  • Git is overtaking svn, jammycakes already linked a chart. The debate around the two is not only a question of ease of use, stability, implementation, but the services that build around them. In my opinion, Git is unstoppable in the latter. Think about all the package managers, npm, bower, etc, and other services blooming on top of git. Go to product hunt http://producthunt.com and look for git startups. You'll find a ton of them, like git marketplaces http://gitbip.com, translation services, etc. I think that is a major force under git's growth. – Mihaly KR Jun 01 '17 at 08:59
  • На 2016 г. Git занимает от 70 до 85% https://rhodecode.com/insights/version-control-systems-2016 https://zeroturnaround.com/rebellabs/java-tools-and-technologies-landscape-2016/ – Grigory Kislin Apr 26 '18 at 16:11

4 Answers4

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Sites such as Ohloh and Github only give you an indication of what's going on in the open source world, and take no account of the (much larger) commercial/industrial/closed source side of things; Google Trends gives all sorts of other hits for "subversion" and "git" (both of which have other meanings outside the SCM world).

The best indicator you're likely to get at the moment is the Eclipse Community Survey. This is conducted every year by the Eclipse Foundation and since Eclipse users tend to be Java developers of all shapes and sizes, it targets a fairly representative cross-section of the software development community as a whole. The only problem is that Windows developers are probably under-represented, but nevertheless, it still gives a reasonable guide as to where things are at, and since it's been going for a few years now, you can start to see what trends are beginning to emerge.

Their figures for Git are:

  • 2009: 2.4%
  • 2010: 6.8%
  • 2011: 12.8%
  • 2012: 27.6%
  • 2013: 30.3%
  • 2014: 33.3%

For Subversion:

  • 2009: 57.5%
  • 2010: 58.3%
  • 2011: 51.3%
  • 2012: 46.0%
  • 2013: 37.8%
  • 2014: 30.7%

Git versus Svn numubers plotted

The 2012 survey report is due out in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, another data point we can consider is the growth of Github. Back in August, I observed that it had just under a million users, though I didn't record the exact figure. This has grown to 1,654,419 users as of the time of writing: an increase of at least 66% in 288 days, or about 90% a year. If we assume that the growth of Github is indicative of the rate of increase of Git usage industry-wide (a potentially dubious assumption: see comments below), that would suggest that Git adoption is currently somewhere between 20% and 25% industry-wide, and on course to overtake Subversion to the number 1 slot sometime in the next 12-18 months or so.

Update: the results of the 2012 Eclipse Community Survey give Git/Github a total market share of 27.6%. This is much more than I was expecting (I thought it would be low 20s at best) and means that it now almost certainly has significant penetration into corporate and enterprise environments. Subversion is still in the number 1 slot for now, but given these figures, I would be very surprised indeed if this remains the case this time next year.

Update: results have been added for the 2013 Eclipse Community Survey. Git is now at about equal usage with subversion (36.3% vs 37.8% respectively), and if the trend continues it will easily be in first place next year's survey results.

Update: The results of the 2014 Eclipse Community Survey show Git (33.3%) surpassing Subversion (30.7%) as expected from the trend in the previous year.

Sources:

Martijn Pieters
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jammycakes
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    Github is very open source centric. I'm pretty sure that in industry usage, git will be below 10% for years to come. – Michael Borgwardt May 30 '12 at 07:26
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    Actually, I addressed that point in my answer here: that's why I pointed to the Eclipse Community Survey, since it represents a much wider cross section of the industry than just open source users. All the evidence that I can see indicates to me that in industry usage, Git passed the 10% mark about a year ago, and is still on the rise. – jammycakes May 30 '12 at 11:58
  • yeah but then you extrapolate from that based on the github numbers - combining apples and oranges. We also seem to be using different definitions of "industry", yours being "all projects including open source" and mine "projects being run for profit by a company". – Michael Borgwardt May 30 '12 at 13:20
  • Granted, there is an assumption there that Git growth will have been proportional to Github growth over the past year or so, but that's only a stopgap until the results of the next Eclipse Community Survey are published. It's a good point though: open source development is dominated by Git and Github -- but to what extent are Git and Github themselves dominated by open source? – jammycakes May 30 '12 at 14:38
  • I've updated my answer to include the latest survey results. Given the new figures, I find it very hard to believe that Git usage in industry (even excluding open source) is anywhere near as low as 10% now. – jammycakes Jun 08 '12 at 10:51
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    OK, you have me partially convinced, though I still don't think the survey is really representative. – Michael Borgwardt Jun 08 '12 at 11:07
  • If there's any bias, it will be towards corporate Java developers, since in practice that's Eclipse's primary audience. It may not be perfect, but it's probably the best indicator we've got about adoption of different technologies in enterprise environments. More importantly though, since we have results for several years, it shows some clear trends. – jammycakes Jun 08 '12 at 12:19
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    I think its perfectly possible for git usage in industry is very low: most industry used Windows, and git is a very poor choice there - Mercurial would be a much more accepted option. – gbjbaanb Jun 26 '12 at 14:31
  • the trend is also going to be skewed with Android development being quite popular, and thus attracting a lot more developers to Eclipse, probably more individuals rather that corporate types. – gbjbaanb Jun 26 '12 at 14:39
  • Just curious why hasn't git overtaken SVN if the demand is so strong (and in jobs you usually see git usually requested most often it seems): https://www.openhub.net/repositories/compare This seems to indicate SVN still have a good lead on GIT? – armyofda12mnkeys Aug 19 '16 at 20:16
  • I've no idea. Open Hub (formerly ohloh) is the only data point that I'm aware of that still puts svn ahead of Git. Their pie chart has barely changed at all in four years, in which time every other data point I've seen has shown a massive shift. Git is now ahead of svn by a factor of two to one or more just about everywhere you look. – jammycakes Aug 22 '16 at 14:08
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To add to Jan's answer, Ohloh has been crawled (only) three times by the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, but July 2011 is unreadable, so that gives three data sets including today (plus future edits):

August 2010

  • Git: 26,485 repositories (11.3% of total)
  • SVN: 25,336 repositories (10.8% of total)
  • SvnSync: 117,326 repositories (50.0% of total)

Note: Unlike later dates, August 2010 has separate values for Subversion and SvnSync (a Subversion read-only mirroring tool). It's fair to surmise the later Subversion figures also include the large SvnSync share.

May 2011

  • Git: 116,224 repositories (35% of total)
  • SVN: 145,917 repositories (44% of total)

February 2012

  • Git: 124,000 repositories (26% of total)
  • SVN: 265,883 repositories (57% of total)

June 2012

  • Git: 134,459 repositories (27% of total)
  • SVN: 267,499 repositories (54% of total)

October 2013

  • Git: 238,648 repositories (38% of total)
  • SVN: 291,920 repositories (46% of total)

April 2014

  • Git: 247,103 repositories (37% of total)
  • SVN: 324,895 repositories (48% of total)

July 2016

  • Git: 274,605 repositories (39% of total)
  • SVN: 326,540 repositories (46% of total)

May 2018

  • Git: 397,653 repositories (51% of total)
  • SVN: 325,684 repositories (41% of total)

November 2018

  • Git: 600,724 repositories (61% of total)
  • SVN: 325,733 repositories (33% of total)

March 2019

  • Git: 842,966 repositories (69% of total)
  • SVN: 324,589 repositories (26% of total)

August 2019

  • Git: 913,378 repositories (70% of total)
  • SVN: 324,629 repositories (25% of total)

This appears to show that, of the open source repositories registered on Ohloh, there's been a huge growth in both Git and Subversion. Whereas they were about level in 2010, there were double the number of Subversion repositories in 2012 (...indexed by Ohloh), but Git has now easily taken the lead.

Boshentz
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Hugo
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    I think the svn v svnsync issue is more one of miscategorisation. svnsync *is* svn, the mirroring tool simply replays svn commits to make backups so there is no distinction between repositories. Its the same difference between using TortoiseSVN and svn command line. – gbjbaanb Apr 23 '14 at 07:47
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Further to my previous answer, there are some websites out there that track demand for skills among employers. These are a useful metric because they show exactly where things are at in corporate/enterprise settings, while disregarding the open source/hobbyist market (which can be pretty fanboyish at the best of times).

One example is http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/. Their statistics are as follows as of 18 June 2013 as compared with 18 June 2012:

(I wasn't able to find statistics for any other system e.g. CVS, SourceGear Vault etc.)

It appears that demand for Git is doubling approximately every 12-18 months and if present trends continue it will overtake Subversion round about the end of 2013 to become the most widely used source control software in corporate settings. Subversion apparently peaked about a year ago and is now gradually declining.

jammycakes
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  • alas, from my (anecdotal) view of looking for jobs, TFS2012 seems to have taken over completely. – gbjbaanb Jun 18 '13 at 09:31
  • I'm actually fairly optimistic about TFS. TFS 2012 is a massive improvement over earlier versions (good riddance to those awful server workspaces and read-only files) and the next version of TFS will include Git support out of the box. The impression I get is that Git's growth is more likely to be at the expense of Subversion. – jammycakes Jun 18 '13 at 10:38
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    @jammycakes What about now? – Ian Aug 23 '17 at 12:18
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I think ohloh has some relevance, but I am not sure you could pry historical data from them.

Also for some specific domain, see use of vcs for Debian packagin (you could be able to pry some historical data from UDD, but probably not very long, as the Vcs-* fields are not that old).

Jan Hudec
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