A VersionControlSystem that uses inter-repository replication as the mechanism for collaboration. Each participant has a full copy of the repository and can exchange changesets freely with any other participant. Examples include Git, Mercurial, Bazaar and darcs.

This stands in contrast to a centralised VersionControlSystem, where there is only one repository stored on a central server, which serves as the hub for any collaboration: participants must push commits to this server and must fetch others' commits from it. This has many drawbacks. (AddToMe) Examples include CVS and SubVersion.