When comparing git-cola vs tig, the Slant community recommends tig for most people. In the question“What are the best Git clients for Windows?” tig is ranked 5th while git-cola is ranked 20th. The most important reason people chose tig is:
If you prefer to do most of your development inside the terminal, changing windows to move to a GUI git client can be annoying. Since tig runs inside the terminal, that's avoided.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Free software
This application is FOSS, and thus it can be freely modified & distributed.
Pro Cross-platform
Works on Linux, Mac and Windows.
Pro Full unicode support
Pro Minimalist interface
Pro Available in Homebrew
Can be easily installed through homebrew by running brew install git-cola
.
Pro Allows you to stay in the terminal
If you prefer to do most of your development inside the terminal, changing windows to move to a GUI git client can be annoying. Since tig runs inside the terminal, that's avoided.
Pro Fast
Pro Vim-like bindings
Pro Available in Homebrew
Can easily be installed with homebrew simply by running brew install tig
Pro Works on any platform
Cons
Con Limited feature set
You sometimes need to touch the terminal in order to get certain things done.
Con Steeper barrier to entry as compared to a GUI solution
Since you have to get used to working in the terminal (if you are not already used to doing that) and learn the commands, it has a steeper learning curve than GUI clients which are usually more intuitive and easier to grasp.