Git vs Mercurial
Git and Mercurial are two version control systems. Git is the more popular one and it is also more widely used. Mercurial, on the other hand, is as popular but still has a lot of powerful features that help us in managing our projects.
Both Git and Mercurial are distributed version control systems which means that if we clone a repository managed by them then we will have access to the entire commit history of the project.
Let's take a look at some of the key differences between them.
Git vs Mercurial
| Git |
Mercurial |
| Git involves a steep learning curve. Git is a lot more complex and difficult to learn as compared to Mercurial. |
Mercurial is a lot simpler and easier to use and understand. |
| Git provides a lot more flexibility to the users and has additional features that are not present in Mercurial. It provides us tools with which we can change the version history of the project. |
Mercurial is a little less flexible when compared to Git. We cannot change the history of a project managed using Mercurial. However, we can alter the most recent commit that was made.
|
| Git has a staging area or an index where we can view and segregate the files that will be part of the next commit. |
Mercurial does not have a staging area or an index. |
| Git was developed using C, Python, Tcl, Shell, and Perl. |
Mercurial was developed using C and Python. |
| Git is preferred by organizations having large teams. It is also the preferred first choice of experienced developers. |
Mercurial is most suitable for smaller teams and for individuals who are new to version control systems. |
| Git provides a lightweight and robust branching model which makes experimenting with changes very easy. |
Branching is Mercurial is a bit more complex and difficult to understand. |
Summary
Git and Mercurial are two very popular version control systems. They both follow a distributed model. Git is more widely used as compared to Mercurial. There are a few large organizations like Facebook and Mozilla that still prefer Mercurial.
Mostly Mercurial is preferred by smaller teams and inexperienced developers because it is a lot easier to learn and understand than Git. Git has a more robust branching model when compared to Mercurial.
