It's simple: I created a local branch, worked on it, then tried the git workflow:

1. Switch to the default branch

2. Cherry-pick (with the equivalent hg command) my changes from my own branch into default

3. Push the changes to the remote repo

What happened was that my local branch got pushed to the server, along with the default one. With git this wouldn't happen, it would push the local master to the remote master.

Yes, by default all branches are pushed, (you would have to use --force if it creates new heads, and --new-branch to push new named branches). But I really don't see how it makes anything "server" or "client" side.

(and you could in any case decide to push just default: hg push -r default)

This is because hg pushes all changesets by default. There are two workflows in hg that would get you what you want:

hg push -b default

Pushes only changesets from the default branch. You can also do these with phases by marking your branch as private.