Best SVN backend benchmarks

Question

Are there benchmarks about the usage, speed, reliability of svn back-end databases?

• SQLite
• MySQL
• PostgreSQL
• BerkeleyDB
• Flatfile system

Let's say we have 20 people working on the repository concurrently. What to choose?

Answer 1

The FSFS backend is the most well-tested and stable of the lot. For only 20 people, you are not likely to have any performance problems at all.

Answer 2

Today, you only have 2 choices if you are hosting your own server:

1. BDB (BerkeleyDB)

2. FSFS (direct filesystem)

These days, FSFS is the preferred backend, and has been for a number of years. There is almost no advantage to BDB, and I think it is only around for legacy compatibility. FSFS is the default on any current SVN release. A lot of the SVN binary distributions don't even have BDB support compiled in.

More info: http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.5/svn.reposadmin.planning.html#svn.reposadmin.basics.backends

Note that custom implementations are possible. For example, Google Code has a custom SVN backend based on their Bigtable architecture. Not sure if any other SVN hosting providers do something similar.

Additionally, the SVN developers have been working on a replacement for FSFS called FSX or FS2. It is still experimental though.