When we’re out n’ about at meetups, conferences, etc., people often ask why they should use Stash when there are so many other options out there. At the risk of waxing existential, that’s a question each team must answer for themselves. But I can tell you why other teams have chosen–or switched to!–Stash.

Behold: Five things you won’t find in the Git repository manager you’re using now. (Unless you’re already using Stash. In which case, may I direct your attention to Bamboo?… Wink ;))

1: Flexible options for infrastructure

Lots of teams out there need to control the networks that their code lives on – especially teams in highly regulated industries. That’s why Stash puts you in the driver’s seat with full control over operating system, database, and authentication. Because it’s not a black-box virtual appliance, you can drop Stash into the systems and platforms you already use.

2: Add-ons that go beyond

GraphsForStash-2Dozens of add-ons are already available on the Atlassian Marketplace, and it’s easy to build your own. Naturally Stash has a comprehensive REST API, but that’s just table stakes in the Git repo game. We upped the ante and built in the same powerful plugin framework found in Jira and Confluence so you can you embed actions and information from your add-on within the UI. Check out what Marketplace vendor Stiltsoft did for their popular Awesome Graphs for Stash add-on.

But an add-on doesn’t have to be big to be awesome. Using Stash’s plugin points, you could add a custom button to pull requests that sends an alert to the release manager. Or build a custom hook that notifies stakeholders when a dev branch has been merged to master.

3: Lust-worthy integrations

Never underestimate the power of small things, like the Create branch link you’ll see inside issues when you connect Jira to Stash. Stash suggests which code line to create the branch from, and a prefix indicating the branch’s purpose – feature, bugfix, etc. – based on the Jira issue type. The issue’s key is copied into the branch name so your team knows what work is underway, and Stash will push commit and pull request info back to Jira so stakeholders can get updates right inside the issue. Meanwhile, because developers spend more time in Stash, we show which issues are related to commits and pull requests, and even let you change the issues’ status without having to switch to Jira.

IssuesInPullRequest

4: Branch-level permissions

We often talk about the fine-grained permissions in Stash. How fine? Not just project- or repository-level, but branch-level permissions too. Large teams and teams responsible for code lines that others contribute to have control over who can accept pull requests or perform merges. It’s a great way to control the chaos, and only Stash lets you do it.

5: Beautiful side-by-side diffs

Yes, I said “beautiful.” They support in-line comments, let you scroll the two panels in perfect unison, and include hunk maps on each edge that make it easy to find the changes in large files. But never fear: You can toggle to the unified diff view if you prefer seeing the changes interleaved with the original.

StashSideBySideDiff

So there you have it. Don’t just take our word for it, though. Fire up a free trial of Stash and see for yourself.

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5 reasons Stash users are glad they chose Stash