Products · Product
Subversion
Raised as a usability problem by 43 people on Hacker News over 20 years (2007–2026), in 43 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Branches are just directory copies, making merging a nightmareUnreviewed
20072026- Merging trunk into a branch to catch up causes pain on later merge back2023-11-24
- Branching and merging support is bad, making version control hard to work with2017-12-12
- Merging branches gives revprop issues and commits randomly missing mergeinfo, hard to diagnose2016-12-21
Stray .svn folders get deleted and break working copies when folders moveUnreviewed
20072026- A .svn folder appears everywhere, cluttering every project directory2022-03-14
- Subversion repos can get into strange, confusing states after directory operations2019-10-31
- Stray .svn directories cause false search results and easy mixing of working copies2013-02-20
Reverting during conflict resolution silently resets merge trackingUnreviewed
20072026- Merging required manually tracking the base commit in a separate document2024-09-09
- Merges and conflict resolution are arduous and error prone, and two people editing one file both get screwed2022-07-03
- Reverting files during conflict resolution silently resets merge tracking, mangling future merges2020-11-06
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Using a local svn repo as a workaround is extremely clunky2026-05-04
- Getting stuck in a conflict can destroy work, forcing manual file backups2025-10-13
- Merging required manually tracking the base commit in a separate document2024-09-09
- Setting up a server and remembering how to create projects is a constant hassle2024-09-09
- Found Subversion annoying to use compared with git2024-03-04
- Local processes hang when network is down, making the whole workspace unusable2024-03-04
- Merging trunk into a branch to catch up causes pain on later merge back2023-11-24
- No staging area makes it a nightmare to work with2023-08-08
- Merges and conflict resolution are arduous and error prone, and two people editing one file both get screwed2022-07-03
- Subversion merging is bad and its IDE integrations are confusing, obtuse and buggy2022-06-18
- A .svn folder appears everywhere, cluttering every project directory2022-03-14
- Two styles of revision references are super confusing to users2022-01-04
- Commenter finds SVN unintuitive, hard to script, and a monolithic design2020-12-24
- Mirroring the SVN history is so complicated and inflexible that the commenter gave up2020-12-18
- Requires coding changes in exact order on the first try, making it almost impossible to use2020-11-17
- Reverting files during conflict resolution silently resets merge tracking, mangling future merges2020-11-06
- Branch copies take half a day, so teams avoid branching and release rarely2020-05-25
- Subversion was painful to get compiling and working2019-11-01
- Subversion repos can get into strange, confusing states after directory operations2019-10-31
- Subversion is too slow to use, according to this commenter2018-11-28
- Branching and merging support is bad, making version control hard to work with2017-12-12
- Branching and merging in Subversion requires changing paths and is cumbersome, unlike git2017-12-10
- Merge conflicts leave you unable to use normal commands like commit2016-12-21
- Merging branches gives revprop issues and commits randomly missing mergeinfo, hard to diagnose2016-12-21
- Creating and switching branches in svn is so painful that the user built workaround scripts2016-11-16
- Easy to mess up branching and merging, with mistakes permanently recorded and hard to undo2016-05-12
- Branching and merging are cumbersome, easy to get wrong, and hard to recover from2016-05-11
- Merging branches back into mainline is painful and hard to do correctly2013-10-17
- Finds Subversion and Perforce more frustrating to use than git2013-09-26
- Stray .svn directories cause false search results and easy mixing of working copies2013-02-20
- Stray .svn folders get deleted and break working copies when folders move2013-02-20
- Can only commit some of the files worked on, so commits end up partial2012-06-26
- Only one task can be worked on at a time per checkout, forcing people to remember or note other fixes2011-12-02
- Creating a branch requires a long, error-prone svn copy command with full repository URLs2011-03-10
- Easy to commit by accident from a mistyped or repeated command2011-01-15
- Svn merges sometimes fail completely, forcing manual merging and file backups2011-01-14
- Update merges uncommitted changes and leaves files with no way to recover them2010-05-13
- UI is horrific and common operations throw away data2010-02-19
- Branch management and merging are poor, making branch comparison awkward and slow2010-02-10
- Branches in Subversion are so hard to use they are almost unusable2010-02-10
- Renaming or deleting files outside svn tools silently corrupts the working copy, noticed only at commit2009-09-03
- Too much detail early on makes the book confusing for beginners2009-09-03
- One wrong move can lose data permanently, especially with svn update2009-08-16
- Design so broken that the author finds it unusable overall2009-06-06
- Branching is confusing because it is tied to copying directories in a remote repository2008-12-11
- Must manually back up working copy to avoid losing work2008-11-26
- Merging takes several tries to get the syntax right2008-11-25
- Must manually add, move and delete each file, which is tedious2008-10-08
- Manual merge tracking causes revisions in branches to get lost2008-08-21
- Branches are just directory copies, making merging a nightmare2008-05-01