When comparing GitExtensions vs Fork, the Slant community recommends Fork for most people. In the question“What are the best Git clients for Windows?” Fork is ranked 2nd while GitExtensions is ranked 7th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Open source
It's totally free
And its written and thought by developers who really know what you need as a developer. Open to contributions by everybody.
Pro Git commands visibility
GitExtensions typically displays all commands that it carries out in a separate window. The user can also open the Gitcommand log (under Tools) and view the git commands as they interact with the program.
Pro SSH support
Instead of using HTTPS and authenticating every time they are pushing their code remotely, plenty of developers prefer to use SSH to communicate with the remote server and authenticate using secure key pairs.
Pro Powerful commit screen
Staging/unstaging files and/or lines of code, ammending, overriding commit's author, commit templates.
Pro Many advanced features made easier to use
Complex git commands such as resolving a rebase conflict or performing a subtree merge are made much easier by a helpful UI.
Pro Great UI
GitExtensions has a simple layout, all usual functions being available without navigation menus. The branching and merging are clear and easy to follow.
Pro Lightweight and fast
GitExtensions is a lightweight and fast application.
Pro Very good stash support
Easy to save, view & pop stashes.
Pro Easy to set up
Can either be set up as a shell extension, standalone tool of Visual Studio plugin, allowing developers to choose the way that suits their workflow best and is easier for them to get into.
Pro Easy to use
Can be used as a Visual Studio plugin for developers who use it as their IDE, or as a standalone tool. Both are easy to use even for users not very familiar with git.
Pro Submodule support
Powerful submodule support, also when working with multiple cloned SuperRepos.
Pro Responsiveness
Pro Useful plugins
Includes Gitflow, also has a delete obsolete branches feature which is very useful to get rid of those old branches that have already been merged. There are also other options to clean overall clutter in repositories.
Pro Built-in git-bash console
This makes running custom git commands quicker.
Pro Eases initial git configuration
The settings window on first run helps you set lots of required settings such as your commit email address.
Pro Simple global / local diff and merge support
Makes working with repos using different languages and support tools much easier.
Pro Allows easy setting up of scripts to enhance productivity
Pro Plugin API
There are several out-of-the-box plugins installed with standard setup. Additional behavior customization is possible with new plugins (written in C#).
Pro Integration with common tools like Jira or TeamCity
Pro Fast and easy to use
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.
Pro Smart Diff is very handy
Pro Tabbed interface
Several repos can be open at once in individual tabs, so it's trivial to switch back and forth between them.
Pro Overall aesthetic
The GUI components are flawless on the Mac. It is expected to be a similar experience on Windows. Once you realize that you can filter by branch, your appreciation for the product will go up dramatically.
Pro Dark theme support
Pro Highlights the difference within a line
Pro Merge Conflict Resolution is great
Pro Comfortable keyboard shortcuts
Pro Repositories with uncommitted changes have a * next to their name
This is an update from previous versions.
Cons
Con No side-by-side diff
There is no option to do side-by-side review of files. Creator(s) do not feel this is a desirable feature. While this is great software in almost all aspects, not giving the end-user a choice of side-by-side diff (inside GitExtensions) is a deal-breaker.
And no, using an external tool to do this is too much of a hassle, because of the amount of files to check in each change-set (in my case that are often 200 to 300 files).
Con Not truly cross-platform
GitExtensions is not truly cross-platform. It can run through mono on UNIX-based systems but this does not work as well as it does on Windows.
Con Missing tabs to have more repositories open at once
Con Doesn't offer " Repo Groups"
Repo groups (best done in smart git, Git Kraken's version is also decent) is an amazing time saving feature when you work with multiple repos on a daily basis. This is the only con!
Con UI does not render properly on Windows 10 x64
Con UI may feel cluttered with too much information
The sheer amount of information that the UI displays by default may feel overwhelming at times, if not outright confusing.
Con Linux version has no updates
If you want an updated version, you have to download the source and figure out how to build it yourself. Developers don't have any kind of documentation or faq about this process.
Con Still a young client, thus 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.
Con No Linux version
This git client is not compatible with Linux making the life harder for the developers that work on both, MacOS and some Linux distro.