Has really many features like the side-by-side index+HEAD+work tree diff tool integrated as well as a conflict view that really helps.

The clean and intuitive UI makes SmartGit very easy even for people with no prior experience with Git, even after reading just a bit on how Git works and what the main commands are.

The best side by side comparison in any Git GUI. You can edit and do line by line reverts, something that can be taken for granted and you'd be surprised when other clients don't have these features. The 3-way side by side merge for conflicts is also a breeze.

Allows powerful navigation between branches and eases merges.

When the changes affect only a few characters in a line of code, the embedded difference viewers in the majority of competitors (such as SourceTree) show the whole line as removed and re-added. SmartGit highlights the characters that have been removed / added, so they are easier to read.

It doesn't require an external merge tool (like Sourcetree). This is very useful and works better than other tools, and also is cross platform.

When using one of the buttons, the log shows you the command that is actually used. Helps to understand and learn command-line git!

Developers are very pro-active and respond very quickly to any email inquiry.

The graph visualisation in the log is superb and allows you to easily navigate between branches, see commits in context and even view "lost heads" (reflog) in the Recyclable Comits.

SmartGit has a rather clean and uncluttered user interface. All the most useful tools and information are displayed at all times or are otherwise just a couple of clicks away.

All repositories are displayed in the sidebar and through a tabbed interface you can view various info about a specific repository (files, branches, branch graph, etc). The most used git commands like pull, push, sync, commit and merge are always available on top.

Using OAuth, you can connect SmartGit with your accounts in Github, Bitbucket, or Stash and access the remote repositories there. You can then clone, fork, commit or push to your remote repositories from inside SmartGit. You can also view and manage pull requests for your open source projects from SmartGit.

This is available through the "Favorite" flag one can set for each repository.

Can make a repo group containing multiple repos; it acts as a meta repo.

Can submit selected files from multiple repos in a repo group in one commit action; uses the same commit message in all the repo commits.

Not every, but nearly all.

SmartGit can be used free of charge by Open Source developers, teachers and their students, or for hobby, non-paid usage. However, some features are only available with paid versions, like JIRA/GitHub Entreprise/Bitbucket integration, distributed review, DeepGit.

Compared to gitk, git gui, SourceTree, GitKraken.

Showing commits from the current branch, its remote branch and one auxiliary branch. Independent of the that, there is a log window available that allows to view all (other) commits.

If screen space is limited, one can stack some views onto another. 2 layouts are available - "Main" and "Review" - with independent view positions.

Easy to merge/rebase/reset/fast-forward/cherry-pick right within log window by simply drag-and-dropping head markers.

You can easily update submodules from the containing repo, unlike other GUIs that require you to open each repo separately. Saves a lot of time when working on a monorepo managed using submodules.

The built-in compare and conflict solver has syntax coloring with customizable colors.

GitFlow provides a consistent development process by defining a strict branching model that is great for managing large projects. SmartGit allows for setting up and integrating into repos that follow this model.

One payment, get updates for all future versions.

SmartGit's log viewer displays the full commit history in a clean UI. This can be filtered to only show commits matching a certain criterion (e.g. branch).

The file list view can be tweaked and filtered in many ways (e.g. regex can be used).

And support for own themes.

If normal Git commands would abort because of local modifications, SmartGit can stash them and apply later after the command ran successfully, e.g. a rebase.

There is no option of just showing the current branch or all branches, but you can select very fine-grained what branches/forks should be displayed.

This allows great layouts as desired.

It may look confusing at first, but once you know each part, you love how useful they are.

4GB, 10 years. Most other graphical clients either slow down to a crawl or even crash, or don't support some of the needed features.

Or nearly everything.

Git-flow provides a consistent development process by defining a strict branching model that is great for managing large projects. SmartGit/Hg allows setting up and integrating into repos that follow this model.

This is very useful when reviewing files before committing and finding a needed quick tweak.

SmartGit also has a portable bundle that can be downloaded and can be run from external devices (such as a flash drive for example).

SmartGit/Hg supports Git and Mercurial as well as SVN via git bridge.

Rebased, but not yet garbage-collected commits can be easily made accessible again, e.g. after a reset hard.

Stores all your different repository passwords within an encrypted vault that can be activated with a single master password.

Git squash is a pain on CLI, and most Git clients allow some kind of squash during Rebase only. Ctrl+J shortcut helps for simple squash commits.

External tools (which have a command line support) can be integrated to be used to open/view files, for diff or as conflict solvers. E.g. editors like Notepad++ or VS Code, p4merge to diff images or kdiff3 as diff view/conflict solver.

Support responds quickly and they genuinely try to help you! If it's a bug, it will often be fixed within days.

See here.

Support GitBugTraq file.

You don't have to search all the repositories when trying out SmartGit the 1st time, but it finds all of them magically.

Allows you to select the desired issue, instead of having to do it manually.

GPG in SmartGit makes for added security.