When trying to understand what the index is for, SmartGit gives you what really is behind the curtains. When staging a hunk, you can visualize what it actually means. The HEAD vs Index vs Working Tree is the killer feature of SmartGit because it doesn't obfuscate what are the internals (git has such a leaky abstraction...).

The Windows, Linux and Mac variants are the same version and have the same feature set.

SmartGit can be used free of charge by Open Source developers, teachers and their students, or for hobby, non-paid usage.

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.

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

Which asks for private key and passphrase instead of using command line to set it up.

This allows great layouts as desired.

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.

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.

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.

Can do lots of operations while working tree has pending changes, SmartGit will automatically stash them before, and pop them after.

Compared to gitk, git gui, SourceTree, GitKraken.

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

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).

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.

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.

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.

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

This is extremely useful in histories with a lot of merges. You can focus on the changes on the main branch and expand into a merged branch with a single click when you need to.

Using OAuth, you can connect SmartGit with your accounts in Github, GitLab, 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.

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

The "non-commercial" option is handled very liberally. ;)

Integrates with GitHub out of the box.

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

SmartGit also has a portable bundle that can be downloaded and can be run from external devices (such as a flash drive for example) or to test-drive without leaving traces on the machine after removing.

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

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

One payment, get updates for all future versions.

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.

Support GitBugTraq file : https://github.com/mstrap/bugtraq

See http://smartgit.userecho.com/

And support for own themes.

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

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