SVN Explained
What is Subversion (SVN)?
An open-source revision control system, which aims to be a compelling replacement for CVS. Subversion was created in 1999 by CollabNet inc. and is used to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation. Subversion's goal is to be a mostly-compatible successor to the widely used Concurrent Versions System (CVS). Subversion is well-known in the open-source community, being used on projects including Apache, Free Pascal, FreeBSD, GCC, Diango, Ruby, Mono, SourceForge.net, ExtJS, PHP, MediaWiki, and Google Code.
Do we support Subversion (SVN)?
If you check our compatible technologies list, you will notice that we support the client but not the repository. This can cause some confusion for some people, so the scope of this article is to explain in detail the difference between the client and the repository and exactly how that comes together from a support perspective.
SVN Client is compatible with all of our hosting accounts.
Subversion has its own command-line client. Other clients are available, which are perhaps easier or more intuitive to use in different scenarios. Often, people have several clients installed, and use each for different tasks. These clients are compatible with all of our hosting. You can connect to a repository stored on your local computer or another server, and this will work fine.
Running a Subversion (SVN) repository is only allowed on VPS and Dedicated servers.
To maintain these repositories, many connections may be made by contributors to the project, so as a rule the Repository is not supported on any of our shared or reseller servers. This means that although the client can use SVN to work on another project who's repository is stored on another server, they cannot store the repository specifically on their account without being in a dedicated environment such as a VPS or dedicated server.
Getting Started
You will need SSH access and installation instructions. HostGator can provide SSH per your request, and installation instructions can be found at https://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.5/index.html.