Centralized Version Control (CVS) VS Decentralized Version Control (DVCS)

A centralized version control system (CVCS) is a version control system in which a central server stores all versions of the files and manages all version control activities. Users check out files from the central server, make changes, and then check the modified files back into the central server.

In a decentralized version control system (DVCS), each developer has a local repository that contains the complete history of the project. Developers can commit changes to their local repository and push those changes to a remote repository. They can also pull changes from other remote repositories. DVCS allows developers to work independently of a central server and allows for more flexibility in how developers collaborate.

There are several key differences between centralized and decentralized version control systems:

• In a CVCS, all changes must be committed to the central server. In a DVCS, changes can be committed to a local repository and then pushed to a remote repository at a later time.
• In a CVCS, users must be connected to the central server in order to commit changes. In a DVCS, users can commit changes to their local repository even if they are not connected to the network.
• In a CVCS, the central server is a single point of failure. If the central server goes down, users cannot commit changes or access previous versions of the files. In a DVCS, each developer has a complete copy of the repository, so there is no single point of failure.
• In a CVCS, there is a single source of truth for the project. In a DVCS, there may be multiple sources of truth, as different developers may have different versions of the repository.