Continuous Integration Tool Comparisons

Version Control

Comparison of version control tools
	TFS	Subversion	Mercurial	SourceSafe
Pros	Industry standard. Works very well. No learning curve from SS.	Works very well, easy learning curve from SS. Faster than TFS. Integrates well with most issue trackers.	Very fast. Designed for geographically dispersed teams. Superior branching merging and conflict resolution.	None. It is capable of destroying a dev teams best efforts, eats babies and causes cancer.
Cons	Bandwidth hungry on each developer commit and when getting latest versions. Can be slow if the connection isn’t great. Merging conflicts can be painful.	Merging conflicts is less than optimal.	Steeper learning curve for devs who’ve never used it. Some training required. This is bleeding edge.	It’s a turd in every way. Microsoft never used it internally for dev work and are still embarassed by its existence.

Comparison of issue tracking tools
	TFS	Bugzilla	Jira
Pros	Industry standard. Works very well. Integrates by default with VS IDE.	Industry standard. Works very well.	Works very well. Easy web interface.
Cons	The web interface (for testers, BA’s and other non-developers) takes a little while to get used to.	The web interface (for everyone) takes a little while to get used to.	Commercial product. There is a license cost.

Comparison of build, test and publish automation tools
	TFS	CruiseControl.Net	TeamCity
Pros	Industry standard. Works very well.	Industry standard. Works very well. Open Source and free.	Easy to configure. Easy to maintain. Uses developer machines to produce builds and can be hosted on a shared server.
Cons	Resource hungry. Needs 2 dedicated servers. One for TFS, one for its database. Commercial product. Costs a kings ransom.	Configuration is done in XML files and is quite complex. Needs a dedicated (perhaps virtual) server as it does its own builds.	Commercial product. Costs $2,000 (USD).