Darcs
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 14 of 26 version control systems by recommenders
Long-standing patch-based version control with a cleaner model than Git, valued for easy cherry-picking and a pleasant interface. Caveat: it can fail badly in rare cases.
Long-standing patch-based version control with a cleaner model than Git, valued for easy cherry-picking and a pleasant interface. Caveat: it can fail badly in rare cases.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 93%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 13 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 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
Better model and foundations than Git
“Darcs in particular I remember as having a much nicer model than either git or mercurial, but it had a horrible corner case behaviour”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Jujutsu worktrees are convenient (2024)” “Darcs predates Git & does a lot of things better than Git”
Comment from 2 Feb 2026 in “Nixtamal: Fulfilling, Pure Input Pinning for Nix” “These DVCS have good (subjectively "better") foundations”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Migrating Dillo from GitHub” - Comment from 10 Apr 2026 in “We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git”
- Comment from 28 Apr 2026 in “Ghostty is leaving GitHub”
Easy cherry-picking since patches commute
“which Darcs/Pijul don’t require so long as the patches apply since they commute”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Tangled – We need a federation of forges” “cherry picking in that was way better than doing it with git”
Comment from 12 Apr 2026 in “Pijul a FOSS distributed version control system” Merges work offline without tradeoffs
“A CRDT-like approach to version control is usable today in darcs and pijul”
Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “Git is a file system. We need a database for the code” “don’t have the tradeoff while also working offline”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “GitHub Is Down” Pleasant interface and user experience
“the user experience is on a whole another level”
Comment from 17 May 2026 in “Mercurial, 20 years and counting: how are we still alive and kicking? [video]” “Somehow its interface just vibes with me.”
Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “The Git history command deserves more attention”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Fails badly in rare cases
“Darcs in particular I remember as having a much nicer model than either git or mercurial, but it had a horrible corner case behaviour”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Jujutsu worktrees are convenient (2024)” “It worked just fine 99% of the time and then 1% it became completely unusable.”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “GitHub Stacked PRs”
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 |
| DarcsThis page | 13 | 1 | 93% | 5 | — | Approved |
What people said
16 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Somehow its interface just vibes with me.”
“the user experience is on a whole another level”
“which Darcs/Pijul don’t require so long as the patches apply since they commute”
“I actually have a soft spot for darcs, which was my first actual DVCS.”
“Pijul & Darcs still have better fundamentals.”
“It worked just fine 99% of the time and then 1% it became completely unusable.”
“cherry picking in that was way better than doing it with git”
“I deliberately moved away from Darcs after a few years”
“some even more algebraically sound like Darcs and Pijul”
“has been big in certain environments and now practically extinct”
“A CRDT-like approach to version control is usable today in darcs and pijul”
“don’t have the tradeoff while also working offline”
“one of the things I miss most from darcs was that being the default experience”
“Darcs predates Git & does a lot of things better than Git”
“Darcs in particular I remember as having a much nicer model than either git or mercurial, but it had a horrible corner case behaviour”
“These DVCS have good (subjectively "better") foundations”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.