What is AnkhSVN? It’s a Subversion source control provider for Visual Studio. It allows you to use Subversion for version control in Visual Studio rather than something like Visual SourceSafe. It’s also open-source and free.

I can just hear some people saying “I’ve tried AnkhSVN. It sucks. VisualSVN is the closest you can get to working Subversion / Visual Studio integration”. I can even hear a few people saying “They both suck. Who needs IDE integration anyway. TortoiseSVN from Windows Explorer is just fine”.

I have shared both of these views at various points in the last few years. But today I discovered and tried AnkhSVN 2.0! Huge difference! The new version is a nearly complete rewrite. It’s no longer an add-in, it’s own a proper SCC provider.

Do yourself a favour and give it a try before you drop any money on VisualSVN.