Among the most important decisions a software developer will make is the platform they use for version control management. Perforce and Git are popular tools for managing source code repositories, and each has its own benefits and shortcomings. Let’s look at some of the main differences between Perforce vs Git that you should consider when selecting the version control system for your team.
With Perforce, developers only download the files they are working on locally. Code changes are checked into a centralized server that contains a single source of truth and tracks change history. Downloading a subset of the repo saves time up front. But any time a change needs to be committed it must be uploaded to the server. This requires a server connection and has the potential of hitting a slowdown due to network traffic.
With Git, the full code repository is downloaded to the developer’s machine. This means a developer downloads the entire repo each time they have to work on the project or sync the latest changes to main repository. Having the full repo on your machine speeds up local commits, diffs, and merges extremely and allows offline work. But the trade-off is the increased complexity of managing and coordinating changes across teams.
For teams working on larger codebases or in repos that contain other large digital assets, Perforce Helix Core is a better solution because it can handle large binary files much more efficiently than Git LFS. Additionally, it easily manages thousands of digital assets and supports over 10,000 concurrent commits.
The distributed architecture of Helix Core allows for rapid file access from the cloud while preserving a unified source of truth. It can also rapidly scale in the cloud to meet increasing demands. With Perforce, there has traditionally been concern around latency and what happens if a central server goes down. However, with Assembla’s Perforce Hosting in the Cloud and the Perforce Helix Core Optimized Network, companies can easily scale, replicate, and backup their codebase. This greatly optimizes performance and reduces risk.
Since every developer will need to download the entire repo regularly, Git works well for repositories that are primarily source code, not digital assets. For teams with fewer and smaller files, merging and pulling changes shouldn’t pose any problems. When codebases grow larger or digital assets begin to include more complex graphics, downloading these files every time changes are made can lead to performance issues. In addition, because of the decentralized architecture, every developer has the full change history downloaded to their machine.
In the case of large binary files, downloading the full change history with each pull does not scale. Git LFS, or Large File Storage, attempts to work around this issue by storing binary files in a separate, centralized “LFS store” and using pointers in the Git repo to control the size of the repository. However, Git LFS has several limitations that make it a cumbersome workaround:
With Perforce, developers checkout files to work on them, so most branching is done at the file hierarchy level. Developers can also lock the files they are working on to prevent others from making changes and creating merge conflicts. The overall branching structure is a hierarchy managed by administrators.
Perforce supports granular permissions at the file, folder, and branch levels, which gives admins greater control over who has access to different parts of the codebase. By limiting individual access to the areas of the repo applicable to their job, teams can increase security and decrease the risk of leaks.
While this type of branching structure and ability to set granular permissions works great for enterprise companies, it might require too much administrative overhead for smaller teams.
Git supports feature and topic-based branching, which allows developers to have multiple local branches where they can work on different topics independently. Developers can leverage this flexible approach to branching to easily maintain a clean branch that only contains production-ready code or to create branches for experimentation and remove them when they are no longer necessary. No admins needed.
Because of its distributed setup and flexible branching, Git easily supports multiple workflow types, which you can learn more about here. Git also has a staging area where you can format and review commits as an intermediate step in the commit process. This allows developers to choose which changes to commit, rather than being forced to commit all files or list out all the files to exclude from the current commit.
Git only supports file locking with Git LFS, so it can be harder to avoid merge conflicts if you have multiple developers working on the same files. Since every developer downloads the entire repo, there is not as robust support for granular permissions as there is in Perforce, though most Git hosting providers have their own features that can help you protect your repos.
Assembla supports branch protection, which allows admins to specify which team members will be able to merge or push code. All other team members will have read-only access and will only be able to submit code via a Merge Request. Additionally, you can create a Mandatory Review Workflow to automatically create Review Branches and Merge Requests and assign the workflow to team members who have merge rights.
Perforce supports integrations with dozens of products from partner companies, including major game engines like Unity and Unreal and industry standard tools for software development like Jira, Microsoft, and AWS. Perforce also has its own suite of tools that integrate with Helix Core: Helix DAM, Helix Plan, and Helix Swarm.
Helix DAM is a digital asset management tool that helps you find, track, and review your digital assets and it integrates with industry standard tools such as Photoshop, Maya, and Blender. Helix Plan is an enterprise Agile planning tool designed for large-scale backlog and portfolio management and it supports a flexible mix of Scrum, Kanban, Waterfall. Helix Swarm is a web-based code review tool that works with Helix Core to enable collaboration and efficient code reviews with the ability to configure custom workflows for your studio.
However, teams that want to host Perforce and its tools in the cloud will need an expert who can handle the migration migrate data and, crucially, maintain and optimize the Perforce server over time. If you find yourself in this situation without an in-house Perforce administrator, Assembla’s managed Perforce hosting solution can handle the heavy lifting, freeing your team to focus on creative work.
Perforce also has the Helix Visual Client (P4V), Helix Plugin for File Explorer (P4EXP), and Helix Sync, which all give artists, designers, and other non-developers easy ways to visualize, access, and update Helix Core version control from their desktops or within tools like Adobe Photoshop CC and Autodesk 3DS. On the developer side, Perforce has the Helix Plugin for Visual Studio (P4VS) which gives developers using Visual Studio a seamless experience with the ability to access version control features without leaving the Visual Studio IDE.
As a popular, free choice for version control, Git also has integrations with many software development tools through its various source code hosting partners. Assembla integrates with Slack, Jira, Github, TestRail, Travis CI, Jenkins, Zapier and more. GitHub has extensions for Unity, Visual Studio, Jira, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and more. GitLab supports integrations with Jira, Jenkins, Discord, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and more. Bitbucket integrates with other Atlassian tools like Jira, Confluence, and Trello, and with Atlassian Open DevOps you can also find integrations for Figma, Jenkins, Slack, Zendesk, and more.
Apart from the free plan for up to 5 users and 1GB, Perforce requires a license. It is a scalable version control system, made to handle large amounts of data and large file sizes. It tends to necessitate a robust infrastructure and often moves large volumes of data, and therefore, cloud-hosted solutions typically come at a higher cost compared to Git.
Unlike Perforce, Git is open source and small teams and individuals can access free plans on major platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket. For teams requiring enterprise-grade features and support, more storage and users, these hosting providers offer tiered pricing models, charging a varying amount per user based on the features and resources required.
Assembla’s cloud-based Perforce hosting maximizes the efficiency of Perforce version control management tools and Assembla is the only cloud-based hosting provider that supports Git and Perforce repositories. Teams can use both SCM tools alongside our robust Agile project management tool, which is designed to facilitate collaboration between cross-functional teams. By signing up for a Perforce Cloud trial, teams can quick-deploy Perforce and Git servers with just one click.
Sign up for a two-week free trial today to explore our version control hosting and see the difference our software makes in the quality and security of your development projects.
