What are the best visual git GUIs?

Question

21

Options
Considered

551

User
Recs.

Mar 19, 2019

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 19 OptionsWhy?

Best visual git GUIs	Price	Platforms	Issue Tracker support
90 SmartGit	$0-$239.00	Linux, Mac, Windows	Atlassian JIRA
82 GitKraken	$0-$99/YR	Windows, macOS, Linux	-
81 Git Extensions	Free	Windows, Linux, MacOS	-
74 Tower	$69/YR-$149/YR	Windows, Mac	-
71 SourceTree	Free	Windows, macOS	-

See Full List

18 Other Options Considered

GitKraken

Top Pro

Beautiful user interface

It's modern and beautiful, it looks clean and refined. It's simple: the most used features (pull, push, branch, stash, commit) are accessible in one click, and are the only buttons. The other features aren't in complicated menus nor in hundreds of buttons, but rather displayed when you right-click on something. It gives more space to the commits, i.e. the most important things. In fact, you can collapse or reduce the other menus/windows. It displays the current path (project, branch) on an horizontal (clickable) bar at the top. It's just a matter of taste but I prefer this to the traditional "tree" view. It has undo and redo buttons on the main window. It supports some drag-and-drop gestures (for example: drag-and-droping the local branch to the remote one pushes it). See More

Top Con

Must log into GitKraken servers to use the free version

All functionality is disabled unless you register for a free account and remain logged in. There is the $99/user/yr Enterprise option. It allows you to deploy a Linux License Server in an air-gapped/offline environment. See More

CaffeinatedEulabeia's Experience

The Linux Client is not updated regularly. Also it had a lot of crashes and lags while we used it in a project last year. Whileas the Windows Versions were performance wise ok the Linux Client was stuck all the time and Actions took almost forever. My personal opinion is also that you don't get enough feedback from the app while it's doing something. Perhaps the reason for the crashes was that we used it in a large project in an offline environment but I would have at least expected that the dev team is responsive and resolves the issues. But it was not. Flagged up the problems and never heard of them anything again. That's just bad support See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

Pricing:~$49/user/yr for Pro, ~$99/user/yr for Enterprise

Integrations:GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab

Enterprise Features:On-Premises Installation / Local Account Management

See All Specs

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Built on top of Electron, so it runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows. See More

Top Con

Has memory-related issues

Like most Electron apps, GitKraken has some memory-related issues. For starter, it requires more memory for an action than an equivalent non-Electron application. Although this should not be a problem most of the time for people who use machines with lots of RAM (after all, RAM is pretty cheap nowadays), it can have some issues when opening large repositories and there have been cases where GitKraken failed to open very large repositories or started lagging once they were opened. See More

Norm Strassner's Experience

none See More

Top Pro

Free version available

There are both pro and free versions available. The free version is pretty complete feature-wise for day-to-day operations. See More

Top Con

Not open source

It is gratis (no cost) but is not open source. The community cannot fix problems in it, audit it for security, or trust it in general. See More

Jeff Dickey's Experience

Previously used Tower (reasonably happily) and SourceTree (inspired me to try anything else). Command-line native since '79. GitKraken makes the easy stuff a no-brainer, the tricky stuff straightforward, and the destructive stuff clearly marked and explained. It never gets in my way while freeing me from having to remember all the tricky little details of a tool that I use to manage all the tricky little details of my work. If you value devoting your available cognitive load to your goal rather than the tools you use to achieve your goal, give GitKraken a try. See More

Top Pro

Extremely easy to use

A lot of care has gone into trying to make GitKraken as easy and intuitive as possible and it show. Every action is quick and painless with no more user interaction than necessary. For example, switching to another branch is as easy as a double-click on the sidebar. See More

Top Con

Crashes once in a while

Under specific circumstances, like resetting 5000+ changes, the GUI will crash. See More

Djay's Experience

Really good product when it work, a nightmare when it don't See More

Top Pro

Offers a simple way of undoing mistakes

GitKraken has simple undo/redo buttons that work the same way you'd expect in any other software. See More

Top Con

Not free for commercial use

The free version of GitKraken cannot be used in commercial projects. See More

Top Pro

Some of the best integration with hosted version control services

GitKraken can be connected to Github, Gitlab, or Bitbucket accounts through OAuth. From that point onward most if not all actions that are related to these services can be done inside GitKraken. Things like: cloning or forking a repository, adding a remote, pushing to a remote repository hosted on these services can be done inside the app. You can even manage pull requests inside GitKraken for example. All pull requests for a certain branch for example are shown on that branch's graph. See More

Top Con

Slow

Can take between 2 and 5 seconds to load a repository, if not crashing while loading See More

Top Pro

GitFlow support out of the box

Supports GitFlow out of the box. See More

Top Con

Amending merge output is a pro feature

In most cases of Merge Conflicts, users are stuck with auto-merge or manually resolving it by hand. This is because in the Free Tier, users can only (1) Keep File (ver 1), (2) Keep File (ver 2), (3) Auto-merge, or (4) Use External Merge Tool. In addition, using External Merge Tools is very limited because GitKraken (all tiers) restricts External Merge Tools to only those it managed to Auto-detect. It also does not support custom arguments for the External Tools. Modifying the merge output directly, or Selecting lines to keep/discard, is a Paid Feature. See More

Top Pro

Under constant improvement

A quick glance at GitKraken's release notes shows how frequently it's updated. Updates are released on a 2-4 week cycle and each one brings new features and bug fixes. See More

Top Con

Has annoying popup reminders that ask you to upgrade to the Pro version

Understandable, since nobody is entitled to use work done by others for free, but annoying nonetheless. See More

Top Pro

Has a FuzzyFinder

GitKraken has a fuzzy finder to switch between repos/files. See More

Top Con

Missing some advanced features

For example: Checkout & Hard Reset Advanced or Interactive Rebase (aka history rewrite) Progress bar indicator See More

Top Pro

Perfect for beginner developers

GitKraken is easy to use and is brilliant for the beginner developers See More

Top Con

No tab support

Cannot access multiple repositories in the same session. See More

Top Pro

Good keyboard shortcuts

Top Con

No real commitement to Linux support

Infinite loop on Fedora 28, no debug feature or stacktrace available, no clear dependencies listing.... no real support on Linux. See More

Top Con

Can be confusing

Top Con

Ugly, looks like a web app

See All

Tower

Top Pro

Pretty, modern-looking user interface

T2 has a good-looking interface and consists of 3 main views - services, repositories and repository. Services view for managing integrations with hosting services like GitHub, Bitbucket and Beanstalk. Repositories view for organizing local and remote repositories into folders and getting general overview about them. Repo view that consists of two main subviews: Working copy view shows modified files and their diff and allows wrapping up changes in a commit. History shows commits alongside metadata and projects file structure. Additionally, it allows performing various tasks such as merging branches via drag & drop, search allows searching by message, commit hash, author, committer and file and there's a quick open that allows fuzzy-searching for folder names. See More

Top Con

Doesn't have a built in diff

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac

Trial Period:30 days

Top Pro

Offers a visual way to solve conflicts

T2 shows conflicting files, their authors and the commit that made changes. It then allows selecting which files should be used in the final result. See More

Top Con

Can only display a single repo at a time

There's no quick way of switching between repositories (such as tabs). See More

Top Pro

Git-flow integration

Git-flow provide a consistent development process by defining a strict branching model that is great for managing large projects. T2 allows setting up and integrating into repos that follow this model. See More

Top Con

Inefficient UI

In order to not overwhelm the users with information, much of the information is either hidden by default or requires navigating to a different section to access. See More

Top Pro

The UI only shows the needed commands at a time

Tower covers most of the daily tasks that a developer may need to complete. It shows only what you need for the most common tasks without overwhelming the user. See More

Top Con

Stability issues on Windows

On a simple repository, the UI often lags or freezes. See More

Top Pro

Very polished user interface

Top Con

Expensive

Costs $69. See More

Top Con

Not free/libre

This application is proprietary, and thus cannot be modified or freely distributed. See More

Top Con

Doesn't support Subtrees

See All

SourceTree

Top Pro

Gratis

No cost to use without registration. After 30 days, it requires registration (which also costs nothing). See More

Top Con

Requires registration to install and use

An Atlassian account is required for use. See More

EmpatheticTamKung's Experience

Was a bit buggy in the beginning, but late versions are basically unusable – any change to files requires full restart of the app to become visible in the UI See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS

Price:Free

Top Pro

Built-in integration with Stash and Bitbucket

Sourcetree integrates with repositories hosted on Bitbucket, Stash, GitHub, and Kiln. See More

Top Con

No Linux version

There's no Linux version available. See More

Top Pro

Informative branch visualisation

In addition to color-coded branches and icons that tell if a file has been added, removed or modified, Sourcetree also displays the number of commits that are ahead and behind remote repo. See More

Top Con

Overly-complicated UI

Every command line function was seemingly assigned to a button or menu item. That doesn't equate to a good visual interface. See More

Top Pro

Built-in Git-flow and Hg-flow support

Git-flow and Hg-flow provide a consistent development process by defining a strict branching model that is great for managing large projects. Sourcetree allows setting up and integrating into repos that follow this model. Clicking the Git-flow / Hg-flow toolbar button will give you access to actions for starting or finishing features, releases or hotfixes depending on current state of repository. See More

Top Con

Does not support offline usage

As of 2.0.20.1, it now does a dial-home on each start-up. If you're working on air-gapped networks for security and compliance requirements, SourceTree is a no-no. See More

Top Pro

Consistent UI across platforms

SourceTree is great for working in a cross-platform environment as it has the exact same UI on Windows as it has on OS X. See More

Top Con

Buggy as hell

Top Pro

Supports Git, Mercurial and Subversion

Allows managing Git & Mercurial repos side by side. It even allows Subversion interoperability via either git-svn or hgsubversion plugins that set up a bridge between either Git and SVN or Mercurial and SVN respectively. See More

Top Con

Login problems

Frequently unable to log in, despite the correct password. See More

Top Pro

Easy and intuitive interface

A clean interface that allows you to use the main git features with one click. See More

Top Con

No dark theme

No dark theme for Windows, however MacOS version does have a dark theme. See More

Top Pro

Comprehensive layout

SourceTree has 3 main repository views: file status, history and search. File status view shows status of currently selected repo. It's split in 2 areas - file list and diff-view. History view tracks changes made to the currently selected repository. It's divided in 3 sections. The top section has a graph with progression of commits, branches and merges. The bottom section shows commit details, files changed and differences committed. Search view allows looking up commit messages, users, files changes, branches and commit SHA. There's also a toolbar at the top that allows switching between the three views as well as gives access to git commands such as commit, checkout, reset, stash, add, remove, fetch, pull, push, branch, merge and tag. See More

Top Con

Unstable and terrible UX

The Windows version of SourceTree is riddled with bugs, causing some users to find it unusable. These include failing to refresh, frequent freezing, and slow performance. The recent redesign (February 2016) has made the UI difficult to navigate. See More

Top Pro

Powerful enough for experts

Makes advanced Git and Mercurial commands more accessible with a visual context. Review outgoing and incoming changesets, cherry-pick between branches, patch handling, rebase, stash, shelve, and much more. See More

Top Con

Always slow

Top Pro

Allows chunks and lines selection during commit

SourceTree automatically splits the changes to be committed into chunks allowing committing (or discarding) each chunk separately. Furthermore, the user can even select specific lines. This greatly increases the flexibility of the user in that matter. See More

Top Con

Not free/libre

This application is proprietary, and thus cannot be modified or freely distributed. See More

Top Pro

Supports Git, Mercurial, and Subversion

Allows managing Git & Mercurial repos side by side. It even allows Subversion interoperability via git-svn or hgsubversion plugins which set up a bridge between either Git and SVN or Mercurial and SVN respectively. See More

Top Con

Struggles with large repos

With large projects and commits it's can become unresponsive and sometimes crash. See More

Top Pro

Simple yet powerful

SourceTree allows you to do advanced Git operations while making them straight-forward for those who are still adjusting to Git. See More

Top Con

Information density can be a bit much

It's possible to be overwhelmed with the information density presented in Sourcetree. Especially in history view since it includes a lot of data presented in various ways. It's great for getting a comprehensive overview of everything that's happening in one place, but it can take some getting used. See More

Top Pro

Free

Top Con

Doesn't support git word-diff

--color-words, --word-diff, and related options are not available. See More

Top Pro

Supports Git LFS

Top Con

Not good with bare remote repos

Doesn't allow a straightforward interface with bare remotes. See More

Top Pro

No renamed controls

This can be both a pro and a con, because the UI will change slightly depending on which repository type you're using. Might be more of a pro, though, because it helps you to either learn the command lines or instantly know what things are if coming from the command line. See More

Top Con

Windows version isn't stable and behaves differently to the Mac one

See All

Fork

Top Pro

Fast and easy to use

Top Con

Still a young client, thus so not as feature rich

This git GUI client is quite young compared to industry old-timers like git-tower 2 or SourceTree. So it's not as feature rich as you'd like. Still a very capable client for a simple day-to-day work. See More

AgreeableTjilbruke's Experience

User-friendly and feature-rich. Looks and feels great and it's completely free. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac

Top Pro

Comfortable when staging line-by-line changes

This feature is superior to the one that is implemented by SourceTree as it does not reset the file scroll view to the top of the file after each stage. If you do feature-specific commits after some time of development - it's very important to be able to easily compose the commit from different line-based changes. See More

Top Con

No LFS locks support

LFS locks, introduced in v2.0, are mandatory when it comes to using GIT with non-technical personnel who has to edit binary files. This is not possible with Fork. See More

Top Pro

Highlights the difference within a line

Top Con

Not available for Linux

Top Pro

Smart Diff is very handy

Top Pro

Comfortable keyboard shortcuts

Top Pro

Dark theme support

Top Pro

Fork is available for Windows

See All

GitUp

Top Con

Only on Mac

Top Pro

A truly visual interface to git repos

It's a radical departure from the other apps which all more-or-less just throw all the git actions into menus. GitUp is a visual editor for repos, branches, and commits. One can select and move commits with intuitive gestures. See More

ArticulateUenuku's Experience

does not support shallow cloned repo, sometimes rebasing does not work in the same way as command line See More

Top Pro

Free/libre

This application is FOSS, and thus it can be freely modified & distributed. See More

Top Pro

Fully featured

Top Pro

Blazing fast

Fast Git GUI. Everything is already there and loaded when you open up the window. See More

Top Pro

Full undo

You can backup, or edit commits, if you make a mistake. See More

Top Pro

Allows doing complex things without memorizing git

Git usage beyond basic checkout/commit is arcane; GitUp lets you do things in git in seconds that would take you a half hour of research with the command line. See More

See All

TortoiseGit

Top Pro

Open source

Licensed under GPL. See More

Top Con

Windows only

No Linux or OSX versions available. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows

Top Pro

Windows context menu integration

Context menu enables access to common commands quickly. See More

Top Con

May clutter your Windows Explorer

If you have synced your dev folder to a cloud service, TortoiseGit's git status file icons will override your cloud provider's icons. See More

Top Pro

Can parse and provide a pretty log of all commits or filter by branch

Top Con

Buggy file status icons

The file icons are also often buggy and do not reflect its true status. Often times the icon is missing and makes you think a file or folder is untracked, when it is already staged, or sometimes even already committed and pushed. See More

Top Pro

Convinient blaming tool

Very friendly blame tool. Easy to walk in the history of a file. See More

Top Con

Renames git commands

Makes things hard to find for people used to the git CLI. See More

See All

GitHub Desktop

Top Con

Limited

Can't handle complex tasks. The Help Manual advises to use command-line Git instead. See More

Top Pro

Great GitHub integration

This is the official GitHub desktop client built by the GitHub team. See More

Top Con

Buggy

Poster child for authors' programming ideology (FRP), likely the cause for the odd quirks and bugs it has. See More

Top Pro

Simple, streamlined GUI

GitHub Desktop uses an extremely simplistic two-panel view. It's not capable of complex historical visualisations like other GUIs, but it is very easy to use (especially for git novices). See More

Top Con

Not free/libre

This application is proprietary, and thus cannot be modified or freely distributed. See More

Top Pro

Supports pull requests

In addition to being able to seamlessly and easily integrate with all of GitHub's features, it also supports forking and submitting pull requests on any open source project hosted on GitHub. See More

Top Con

Non-GitHub repositories are not fully supported

Since this is mainly a GitHub client, other repositories are not fully supported and with as many features and setting up a repo hosted anywhere else but GitHub is troublesome. See More

Top Con

Does not support multiple Remotes for a repo

Only allowed to assign one URL as remote. To manage/sync/fetch other remotes, use command-line Git instead. See More

Top Con

No Linux support

There's no Linux version of this client. See More

See All

Ungit

Top Pro

Free and Open Source Software

Ungit is open source software available under the MIT Licence. See More

Top Con

Exposes git commands to your network

No authentication, if someone can communicate with your computer on the port this is running on, they can execute any git command they want on your repos as well as view your filesystem's folders. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux

Price:Free

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Works on Windows, Linux, and OS X. See More

Top Con

Setup is not user-friendly

Ungit is distributed as an NPM package and requires git and Node.js to be installed on your system before you can run it. Ungit must be launched by running ungit in a command line terminal. See More

Top Pro

Optional Integration with Modern Text Editors

Ungit can be integrated directly into modern text editors, Atom, Brackets, and VS Code. See More

Top Pro

Web-based interface

Ungit is web-based, meaning you can run it on your cloud/pure shell machine and then use the UI from your browser. See More

See All

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