BitBucket vs. Redmine — VCS and repo management tools compare

Here comes comparison in version control systems and project management tools. I’m going to compare cloud-hosted BitBucket with self-hosted Redmine. As some of you may already expect, the result can be only one.

For me, personally, BitBucket is an absolute, undoubted winner in this field.

Here are four key reasons, why:

1. As mentioned in the introduction, BitBucket is cloud-hosted, so choosing it you drop entire work of installing, configuring and updating your own copy of version control and repository management system. You also don’t need to worry about security issues or possible attacks. But, keep in mind, that as BitBucket fame growes, it is more and more interesting for DDOS attackers and hackers. So you may expect some breaks in normal operation. You, of course, don’t need any hosting or server at all, if you choose BitBucket.

2. Redmine doesn’t allow to edit issue description. You can only update it, with next addition, but there is no way to ammend it. For me this is a design flaw beyond any doubt and if any system, I run into, will fall into such, it simply looses, before the race even start.

3. BitBucket allows you to use Markdown and other lightweight text formatting styles, while Redmine offers only plaintext and limited HTML, available through rich editor only (no direct control on formatting of your text). Since Markdown has become de facto standard for lightweight text formatting (and for me personally, is a miracle!), I again, can’t accept any system that doesn’t support it.

4. Redmine isn’t a repository manager at all. You can connect it to many various version control systems, but you can’t host your actual code within it. Since most people will use it installed on Linux, along with own copy of Git or similar or with connection to Gerrit or something like that, this nearly isn’t a problem at all. But it is worth to point out, that BitBucket serves it all, and gives you one tool for all.

Yes, BitBucket is paid, while Redmine remains open source. But for small teams or small projects (up to five members, up to 1 GB of repository), Bitbucket remains free, so you can cut the price problem definitely.

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