Graphical User Interfaces for Git

Git, although it is command-line-driven software, does not mean that you have to use the command line to operate it. There are many choices! Some of the senior programmers I know prefer to use Git's GUI (Graphical user interface, or something you can see and click on), while some of the pure designers I know prefer to use Git's command line. Believe me.

Let's summarize the current major Git GUI tools.

No matter how much you love CLI, don't discriminate against GUI. Many good programmers like to use the GUI, which is absolutely fine.

There are some strange xenophobic tendencies around the command line. #DevDiscuss

— Ben Halpern ? (@bendhalpern) November 28, 2018

Tower

I've been using Tower for a long time and it's the most widely used one. I'm not sure about the exact release date for all of these tools, but I feel like Tower was one of the early players. They have been around for a long time and are constantly improving, which I have always appreciated.

Fork

It is free and very active in development.

GitHub Desktop

This is the 2.0 version of the original GitHub Desktop. I have some grudges with the 1.0 version, its terminology is (to me) weird and seems to be quite different from Git, which is more confusing than what it deserves (again, for me). This version fixes most of the issues. It is deeply integrated with GitHub, so GitHub's features, such as pull requests, feel like a first citizen, but it still works happily with any Git repository.

GitKraken

I'm very interested in this tool. Upgrading (paid monthly) to get in-app merge conflict tools seems worth it, but you also have to upgrade to access private repositories. It seems to be very feature-rich, but I think my favorite is its dark iridescent tone theme.

Sourcetree

If you are a heavy Bitbucket user, you may be attracted to Sourcetree because they are all Atlassian products. But I know it works for any Git repository. I think its integration with Bitbucket is very smooth, similar to the connections of GitHub/GitHub Desktop.

Coda

You won't really think of Coda as a version control tool (it's more like a direct FTP tool), and even if I think its support for Git is rather incomplete, it does work! The next version of Coda might fix this.

VS Code

In my opinion, using version control directly in your IDE feels somewhere between the GUI and the CLI. There are a lot of features here, but to me it's not a full GUI, but you have a terminal built in, so it almost encourages you to use the command line. Many Git uses very basic pull, commit and push - so it is very convenient to have this feature directly in the application.

(I think there are many other IDEs that offer version control capabilities. For example, PHPStorm.)

Atom

I don't know much about Atom. It's certainly popular, but Atom is the GitHub thing, and now Microsoft owns GitHub, and Microsoft owns VS Code, it's a direct competitor to Atom and has a bigger momentum. In addition, GitHub also has GitHub Desktop, which seems to have momentum. Still, hey, it's a great integration and if you like it, you love it.

Sublime Merge

Manufacturer from Sublime Text! Like Sublime Text, you can use it forever for free, but in this case you only need to pay for the dark theme at the moment.

Gitbox

It looks like the last update was 7 years ago, but it also has good reviews. It looks like you can't view code differences within the application itself, which is a bit strange (the "View Difference" feature doesn't work for me). But in other features, it seems to work well for me.

TortoiseGit

Windows only, so I can't give a short review, but they have a lot of screenshots here.

SmartGit

Cross-platform and looks very full of features (even including file merging tools for conflicts). As a UI enthusiast, I frowned a little when I see it.

GitUp

It looks like it pays great attention to the visual charts of Git branches and gives you control over all nodes and how you use them. I'll embed their demo video to show all these features:

Git Extensions

Windows only, so I can't give a short review, but a lot of people mentioned it so I think it has potential. The 4000+ stars on GitHub (it's open source!) are also cool.

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