5 alternatives to Git LFS for game development

Released by GitHub in 2015, Git LFS (Git Large File Storage) is a Git extension developed to manage large binary files (audio, graphics, video) while using version control. Git was originally designed to manage text-based files, but with this extension it became a good choice for large projects as well, and over the years it has improved a lot and is now a widely used extension by Git apps and Git users. 

These days the main problem with Git LFS, besides a bit of added complexity, is some confusion about limitations and costs. Before we look at the alternatives, let's look at these things first.

Fun fact: The AI-data model provider Hugging Face used Git LFS to manage 29 petabytes (29000 terabytes) of model data.

Costs & limitations

Most of the popular cloud services like GitHub, Azure Devops, Gitea and GitLab can be used with Git LFS, where each service has its own pricing structures, is important to remember that if you work constantly, fetching LFS data will increase your traffic volume, so monitor and adjust the services to your needs.

Git LFS was also introduced to remove the file size and repository size limits imposed on Git repositories. So most of the time when you hear about limitations in Git, it is more likely to be the result of putting binary files into a Git repository without using Git LFS.

‍GitHub

As one of the most popular cloud services for Git, the free plan for Git LFS comes with 1 GiB of free storage and 1 GiB of free bandwidth per month, but with an LFS file size limit of 2 GiB up to 5 GiB. For more storage and bandwidth, data packs are available, each costs $5 per month and provides 50 GiB of storage and 50 GiB of bandwidth.

Azure DevOps

Powered by Microsoft, Azure DevOps is a good alternative to GitHub due to the unlimited free storage for Git LFS and 250 GiB for non-LFS. For a basic team of 5 or less, most of the services are free with some limitations on CI/CD (1800m) and a lack of some advanced features that are rarely needed for small/medium projects.

‍Gitea Cloud‍

Similar to GitHub, Gitea focuses more on self-hosting solutions managed by their app, which offers more flexibility for game developers who prefer more control over their repos, has no limitation on Git LFS, and provides good support and security, especially since they set up a dedicated virtual instance for you. It is open-source and free for self-hosting, with fast updates, active contributions and community support, while for more features like CI/CD actions, instance management and cloud provider selection, it starts at $9.5 up to $19 per user/month. 

Benefits

Git LFS scales well for large game projects and art files, where you don't need to have the content on your hard drive, and most cloud services have no limits for large files, except GitHub. Once you set up your .gitattributes file, or use a git client that already does this for you, like Anchorpoint, GitHub Desktop, it's very easy to use. It also provides file locking for binaries and even text files, which will prevent conflicts if you are working in teams on your projects.

Issues

Developers who don't use Git clients, applications, will often run into repo limits errors if they don't set up the .gitattributes file correctly for each project. Also, in some edge cases (e.g. conflict scenarios) the file contents are replaced by a pointer file, which can be confusing. A pointer file is a small text-based file that replaces large binary files in the Git repository, and contains metadata about the large file that is used to locate the actual file stored on a remote server.

At the same time, due to the large size of the files, depending on the client you use or the command line, you may need to prune and clear the cache on large repositories to save space. Some clients do this automatically with certain settings, on the command line you have to define some jobs, or do it manually from time to time.

Alternatives 

Anchorpoint

As a Git-based application, Anchorpoint is a version control tool that comes out of the box with Git LFS configured for each project. It uses file locking, optimized LFS cache handling for lower disk space usage and conflict resolution without pointer files.

• You get all the benefits of Git LFS right out of the box with no need for extra configuration
• Has file locking
• Thumbnails for graphical assets 
• Unity and Unreal plugins

Using Git without LFS

If you are developing small mods, small games, or websites, Git LFS may not be necessary, and if you have large binaries, you can use partial clone blobless commands to download a repo without binaries.

• can be used for light projects only
• can download repos without binaries if needed

Perforce

The industry standard for major game companies, Perforce version control app is optimized to handle large file projects with high performance, security and scalability. Tightly integrated with Unreal Engine and similar large binary engines, it is widely used by triple-A companies, and while it is an enterprise-grade version control tool, expect enterprise-grade pricing for large projects.

• industry standard for handling large binary files
• great security and access control
• advanced tools for those who want to finetune each branch/repository
• enterprise-grade pricing for large projects

Unity Version Control

Formerly known as Plastic SCM, Unity Version Control can also handle non-Unity projects, but it's designed to manage large Unity projects and handles large binary files very well, while offering advanced branching and merging capabilities. Similar to Perforce, it's a centralized system and not open source, so it doesn't have the ecosystem that Git has, and it's not as popular.

• can handle large binary files
• optimized to work with Unity
• can work with other game engines, but is rarely used

SVN

One of the oldest version control systems, SVN can handle large files efficiently with good branching and merging, but suffers from the lack of cloud services like GitHub, GitLab, and Azure DevOps, and due to the nature of the ecosystem, it has lagged a bit in accessibility and features, along with its centralized nature, self-hosted or Assembla hosting.

• old but reliable version control system
• can handle large binary files well
• good branching and merging

Conclusion

So before you move away from Git LFS, it might make sense to give it another try with a proper configuration. You can also take a look at Anchorpoint, which abstracts the handling of Git LFS so that you are still compatible with Git, but non-developers have an easy to use solution.

If you have already decided to move away, then you can follow the general rule. Unreal Engine projects can use Perforce and Unity projects can use Unity Version Control.