A Coherent Software Configuration Management System

<title>A Coherent Software Configuration Management System</title>

<h3>What Is It?</h3>

<div class="nomargins" style='float:right;border:2px solid #446979;padding:0 15px 10px 0;margin:0 50px 0 10px'>
<ul>
<li> [/uv/download.html | Download]
<li> [./quickstart.wiki | Quick Start]
<li> [./build.wiki | Install]
<li> [https://fossil-scm.org/forum | Support/Forum ]
<li> [./hints.wiki | Tips &amp; Hints]
<li> [./changes.wiki | Change Log]
<li> [../COPYRIGHT-BSD2.txt | License]
<li> [./userlinks.wiki | User Links]
<li> [./hacker-howto.wiki | Hacker How-To]
<li> [./fossil-v-git.wiki | Fossil vs. Git]
<li> [./permutedindex.html | Doc Index]
</ul>
<p style="text-align:center"><img src="fossil3.gif" alt="Fossil logo"></p>
</div>

Fossil is a simple, high-reliability, distributed
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_configuration_management | SCM]
system with these advanced features:

  1.  <b>Project Management</b> —
      In addition to doing [./concepts.wiki | distributed version control]
      like Git and Mercurial,
      Fossil also supports [./bugtheory.wiki | bug tracking],
      [./wikitheory.wiki | wiki], [./forum.wiki | forum],
      [./alerts.md|email alerts], [./chat.md | chat], and
      [./event.wiki | technotes].

  2.  <b>Built-in Web Interface</b> —
      Fossil has a built-in, [/skins | themeable], [./serverext.wiki | extensible],
      and intuitive [./webui.wiki | web interface]
      with a rich variety of information pages
      ([./webpage-ex.md|examples]) promoting situational awareness.
      <br><br>
      This entire website is just a running instance of Fossil.
      The pages you see here are all [./wikitheory.wiki | wiki] or
      [./embeddeddoc.wiki | embedded documentation] or (in the case of
      the [/uv/download.html|download] page)
      [./unvers.wiki | unversioned files].
      When you clone Fossil from one of its
      [./selfhost.wiki | self-hosting repositories],
      you get more than just source code — you get this entire website.

  3.  <b>All-in-one</b> —
      Fossil is a single self-contained, stand-alone executable.
      To install, simply download a
      [/uv/download.html | precompiled binary]
      for Linux, Mac, or Windows and put it on your $PATH.
      [./build.wiki | Easy-to-compile source code] is also available.


  4.  <b>Self-host Friendly</b> — Stand up a project website
      in minutes using [./server/ | a variety of techniques].
      Fossil is CPU and memory efficient. Most projects can be
      hosted comfortably on a $5/month VPS or a Raspberry Pi.
      You can also set up an automatic
      [./mirrortogithub.md | GitHub mirror].

  5.  <b>Simple Networking</b> —
      Fossil uses ordinary HTTPS (or SSH if you prefer)
      for network communications, so it works fine from behind
      firewalls and [./quickstart.wiki#proxy|proxies].
      The protocol is
      [./stats.wiki | bandwidth efficient] to the point that Fossil can be
      used comfortably over dial-up, weak 3G, or airliner Wifi.

  6.  <b>Autosync</b> —
      Fossil supports [./concepts.wiki#workflow | "autosync" mode]
      which helps to keep projects moving
      forward by reducing the amount of needless
      [./branching.wiki | forking and merging] often
      associated with distributed projects.

  7.  <b>Robust &amp; Reliable</b> —
      Fossil stores content using an [./fileformat.wiki | enduring file format]
      in an SQLite database so that transactions are
      atomic even if interrupted by a power loss or system crash.
      Automatic [./selfcheck.wiki | self-checks] verify that all aspects of
      the repository are consistent prior to each commit.

  8.  <b>Free and Open-Source</b> — [../COPYRIGHT-BSD2.txt|2-clause BSD license].

<hr>
<h3>Latest Release: 2.28 ([/timeline?c=version-2.28|2026-03-11])</h3>

  *  [/uv/download.html|Download]
  *  [./changes.wiki#v2_28|Change Summary]
  *  [/timeline?p=version-2.28&d=version-2.27&y=ci|Check-ins in version 2.28]
  *  [/timeline?df=version-2.28&y=ci|Check-ins derived from the 2.28 release]
  *  [/timeline?t=release|Timeline of all past releases]

<hr>
<h3>Quick Start</h3>

  1.  [/uv/download.html|Download] or install using a package manager or
      [./build.wiki|compile from sources].
  2.  <tt>fossil init</tt> <i>REPOSITORY-DIR/new-repository</i>
  3.  <tt>fossil open</tt> <i>REPOSITORY-DIR/new-repository</i>
  4.  <tt>fossil add</tt> <i>files-or-directories</i>
  5.  <tt>fossil commit -m</tt> "<i>commit message</i>"
  6.  <tt>fossil ui</tt>
  7.  Repeat steps 4, 5, and 6, in any order, as necessary.
      See the [./quickstart.wiki|Quick Start Guide] for more detail.