I got a question on a blog post about differences in TFVC and Git support in TFS and VS Online. Here’s a link to the question for context: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bharry/archive/2015/03/12/the-future-of-team-foundation-version-control.aspx#10608301
I can’t answer in a comment with reasonable formatting so I’ll answer in a post.
One thing you can check out is an MSDN topic on the subject here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181368.aspx. There’s some useful information there but I feel like that page is trying to do too many things at once – explain some of the feature differences between a distributed version control system and a centralized one, etc. But it you really are looking holistically at how to choose, there are a lot of factors to consider. The page is also a little out of date with respect to feature availability. We’re working on an update to the page to improve it.
But I decided to quickly jot an answer here that I think is in the spirit of the question. The question, as I read it, is about comparative feature support. My first reaction to the question is that creating a list of differences is both very short and very misleading – because the vast majority, at this point, is common across the two. The question, of course, is where to draw the line. I could write a 10 page document if I had the time and wanted to try to cover everything I can think of. So I’ve focused on what I think are some of the top features in VSO/TFS and highlighted what support we have in each and the differences. I’m sure I’ve missed some big things. It was a 15 minute exercise.
Feature | TFVC | Git | Comments |
Alerts | Y | Y | |
Android Studio integration | N | Y | |
Build support | Y | Y | Both Xaml builds & Build v.next. We also have support for both for Jenkins |
CodeLens | Y | Y | Some differences. Git works offline. TFVC has a couple more indicators – like incoming changes. |
Code review | Y | Y | TFVC has “in IDE” code review. Git has web based pull requests. Later this year the two will be converged and have web and IDE experiences for both |
Code search | N | Y | Code search is in private preview and currently only has Git support. We’ll be adding TFVC support this summer. |
Cross platform command line | Y | Y | |
Data warehouse | Y | N | TFVC exposes some warehouse data like code churn. Git does not. Stay tuned for some announcements in this area. |
Eclipse Integration | Y | Y | |
Gated checkin | Y | N | Will have a Git equivalent this summer |
High availability/DR | Y | Y | |
Welcome pages | Y | Y | |
Work item linking | Y | Y | Some small differences. TFVC can resolve workitems with checkins, Git can’t. Git can #reference work items in commit comments, TFVC can’t. We’ll get parity later this year. |
VS integration | Y | Y | TFVC support is a little ahead with Source Control Explorer, a little better Team Explorer integration, Merge visualization, etc. |
XCode integration | N | Y |
I hope it’s helpful.
Brian