Is AnkhSVN any good?

I always had stability issues with AnkhSVN. I couldn't switch everyone to Subversion where I work without an integrated solution.

Thank goodness for VisualSVN + TortoiseSVN.

VisualSVN isn't free, but it is cheap, and works a treat.


Older AnkhSVN (pre 2.0) was very crappy and I was only using it for shiny icons in the solution explorer. I relied on Tortoise for everything except reverts.

The newer Ankh is a complete rewrite (it is now using the Source Control API of the IDE) and looks & works much better. Still, I haven't forced it to any heavy lifting. Icons is enough for me.

The only gripe I have with 2.0 is the fact that it slaps its footprint to .sln files. I always revert them lest they cause problems for co-workers who do not have Ankh installed. I don't know if my fears are groundless or not.


addendum:

I have been using v2.1.7141 a bit more extensively for the last few weeks and here are the new things I have to add:

  • No ugly crashes that plagued v1.x. Yay!
  • For some reason, "Show Changes" (diff) windows are limited to only two. Meh.
  • Diff windows do not allow editing/reverting yet. Boo!
  • Updates, commits and browsing are MUCH faster than Tortoise. Yay!

All in all, I would not use it standalone, but once you start using it, it becomes an almost indispensable companion to Tortoise.


I tried version 1, and it was unreliable to say the least. I can't say anything about 2.0.

If you can afford it, the one I use, VisualSVN, is very good and uses TortoiseSVN for all its gui, except for the specialized things related to its VS integration.