BitKeeper
Shares rank 22 of 26 version control systems by recommenders
Commercial version control tool people call better designed than predecessors; critics cite its license pulled from Linux kernel developers.
Commercial version control tool people call better designed than predecessors; critics cite its license pulled from Linux kernel developers.
9 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 56%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Design seen as better than predecessors
“It just really highlights how much better BitKeeper and then Git's design was compared to what came before.”
Comment from 25 Nov 2025 in “How did the Win 95 user interface code get brought to the Windows NT code base?” “in some ways was arguably better”
Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “GitHub has alternatives, but no replacement”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Commercial license pulled from Linux kernel
“BitKeeper, a commercial tool, pulled their permission for kernel developers to use their tool”
Comment from 10 Apr 2026 in “We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git” “the commercial license of BitKeeper became unworkable for the Linux kernel community”
Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git” “concerns about using a proprietary product to manage the Linux codebase”
Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “Moving from GitHub to Codeberg, for lazy people” - Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “BarraCUDA Open-source CUDA compiler targeting AMD GPUs”
Other version control systems people recommend
The four most recommended other version control systems, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Git | 814 | 503 | 62% | 13 | 15 yrs42 owners | — |
| Jujutsu (jj) | 335 | 106 | 76% | 13 | 1 yr21 owners | Approved |
| Mercurial | 121 | 43 | 74% | 12 | 19 yrs7 owners | Approved |
| jj (Jujutsu) | 115 | 37 | 76% | 12 | 1 yr7 owners | Approved |
| BitKeeperThis page | 5 | 4 | 56% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
All 9 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“in some ways was arguably better”
“the commercial license of BitKeeper became unworkable for the Linux kernel community”
“BitKeeper, a commercial tool, pulled their permission for kernel developers to use their tool”
“concerns about using a proprietary product to manage the Linux codebase”
“BitKeeper said fuck you to the Linux community in 2005”
“The BitKepper years were... an interesting, politically speaking.”
“for pure Code/Bin-repos....i miss Bitkeeper”
“It just really highlights how much better BitKeeper and then Git's design was compared to what came before.”
“bullshit noise from a practically dead and gone upstream project”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.