VSTS 2008 vs SourceGear Fortress?

[immitev]

My company is evaluating products for VSS replacement and SourceGear Fortress is on our shortlist. I was searching for a comparison between Visual Studio Team System 2008 (with Team Foundation Server) vs SourceGear Fortress, but found nothing. Can someone tell me the pros and cons (not in terms of money, but in terms of functionality). Both products seem to offer similar features, but there are probably some compelling reasons to chose one over the other...

[paulroub]

Thanks for the question. Without knowing a bit more about the size of your development team and how you're set up, I can only provide a fairly generalized answer. But here's some of the more consistent feedback we've received from our customers on why they've chosen SourceGear Fortress over Microsoft's Team System and Team Foundation Server:

Easy Install: SourceGear Fortress installs in under 5 minutes, and runs with virtually no maintenance (see our install video for proof:
http://sourcegear.com/fortress/video/installation.html). Compare this with TFS, which can require days to install and configure, and frequently requires professional consultants.

Maintenance: Most TFS users report that it requires 1.5 - 2 full-time IT professionals per server to administer TFS. SourceGear Fortress has virtually no admin costs.

The Tools You Need: SourceGear Fortress comes with the tools you need for small- and medium-sized teams, rather than tools architected for Enterprise-level workgroups of 300 or more. A couple of features worth checking out include our innovative Line History feature (http://sourcegear.com/fortress/video/linehistory.html) and Clouds (http://sourcegear.com/fortress/video/clouds.html)

Cost: Fortress is $499/user, one-time fee. That's roughly the cost of just the Client Access License (CAL) for TFS. And there's no cost for a Fortress server - it's included for free.

Cross-platform support: Out of the box, Fortress integrates with Visual Studio and Eclipse (on most any platform where Eclipse can run). Our command-line tools and Java API are cross-platform as well, and we support both NAnt and Ant integration.

Real-Time Support: When you call or e-mail us with a question, you'll speak with professional engineers who helped design Fortress, not an overseas call center.

Complexity: Unlike TFS, Fortress was designed with small- to mid-size teams in mind. It's easy to understand, has a familiar User Interface, there's virtually no learning curve for VSS users, and it requires little to no training.

[immitev]

Thanks for the thorough answer.

P.S. Our team is about 10 developers and we are using Microsoft development technologies (i.e VS.NET 2008).

[lbauer]

We'd encourage you to try a free 30 day demo of Fortress. It's the full version of the software, and you can try it in your own environment.

You can download it here:

http://www.sourcegear.com/fortress/downloads.html

We also have online demos each week. You can sign up here:

http://www.sourcegear.com/fortress/demorequestform.html