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Git

284K
164.4K
+ 1
6.6K
SourceTree

10.1K
7.7K
+ 1
727
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Git vs SourceTree: What are the differences?

Git: Fast, scalable, distributed revision control system. Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency; SourceTree: A free Git GUI client for Windows and macOS. Use the full capability of Git and Mercurial in the SourceTree desktop app. Manage all your repositories, hosted or local, through SourceTree's simple interface.

Git and SourceTree are primarily classified as "Version Control System" and "Source Code Management Desktop Apps" tools respectively.

"Distributed version control system", "Efficient branching and merging" and "Fast" are the key factors why developers consider Git; whereas "Visual history and branch view", "Beautiful UI" and "Easy repository browsing" are the primary reasons why SourceTree is favored.

Git is an open source tool with 28.2K GitHub stars and 16.3K GitHub forks. Here's a link to Git's open source repository on GitHub.

According to the StackShare community, Git has a broader approval, being mentioned in 3934 company stacks & 4789 developers stacks; compared to SourceTree, which is listed in 618 company stacks and 415 developer stacks.

Decisions about Git and SourceTree

I explored many Git Desktop tools for the Mac and my final decision was to use Fork. What I love about for that it contains three features, I like about a Git Client tool.

It allows * to handle day to day git operations (least important for me as I am cli junkie) * it helps to investigate the history * most important of all, it has a repo manager which many other tools are missing.

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Pros of Git
Pros of SourceTree
  • 1.4K
    Distributed version control system
  • 1.1K
    Efficient branching and merging
  • 959
    Fast
  • 845
    Open source
  • 726
    Better than svn
  • 368
    Great command-line application
  • 306
    Simple
  • 291
    Free
  • 232
    Easy to use
  • 222
    Does not require server
  • 27
    Distributed
  • 22
    Small & Fast
  • 18
    Feature based workflow
  • 15
    Staging Area
  • 13
    Most wide-spread VSC
  • 11
    Role-based codelines
  • 11
    Disposable Experimentation
  • 7
    Frictionless Context Switching
  • 6
    Data Assurance
  • 5
    Efficient
  • 4
    Just awesome
  • 3
    Github integration
  • 3
    Easy branching and merging
  • 2
    Compatible
  • 2
    Flexible
  • 2
    Possible to lose history and commits
  • 1
    Rebase supported natively; reflog; access to plumbing
  • 1
    Light
  • 1
    Team Integration
  • 1
    Fast, scalable, distributed revision control system
  • 1
    Easy
  • 1
    Flexible, easy, Safe, and fast
  • 1
    CLI is great, but the GUI tools are awesome
  • 1
    It's what you do
  • 0
    Phinx
  • 205
    Visual history and branch view
  • 164
    Beautiful UI
  • 134
    Easy repository browsing
  • 87
    Gitflow support
  • 75
    Interactive stage or discard by hunks or lines
  • 22
    Great branch visualization
  • 18
    Ui/ux and user-friendliness
  • 8
    Best Git Client UI/Features
  • 7
    Search commit messages
  • 5
    Available for Windows and macOS
  • 1
    Log only one file
  • 1
    Search file content

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Cons of Git
Cons of SourceTree
  • 16
    Hard to learn
  • 11
    Inconsistent command line interface
  • 9
    Easy to lose uncommitted work
  • 7
    Worst documentation ever possibly made
  • 5
    Awful merge handling
  • 3
    Unexistent preventive security flows
  • 3
    Rebase hell
  • 2
    When --force is disabled, cannot rebase
  • 2
    Ironically even die-hard supporters screw up badly
  • 1
    Doesn't scale for big data
  • 11
    Crashes often
  • 8
    So many bugs
  • 7
    Fetching is slow sometimes
  • 5
    Extremely slow
  • 5
    Very unstable
  • 4
    Can't select text in diff (windows)
  • 4
    No dark theme (Windows)
  • 3
    Can't scale window from top corners
  • 3
    Freezes quite frequently
  • 2
    UI blinking
  • 2
    Installs to AppData folder (windows)
  • 2
    Diff makes tab indentation look like spaces
  • 2
    Windows and Mac versions are very different
  • 2
    Windows version worse than mac version
  • 2
    Diff appears as if space indented even if its tabs
  • 2
    Doesn't have an option for git init
  • 2
    Useless for merge conflict resolution
  • 2
    Doesn't differentiate submodules from parent repos
  • 2
    Requires bitbucket account
  • 1
    Generally hard to like
  • 1
    No reflog support
  • 1
    Bases binary check on filesize
  • 1
    Can't add remotes by right clicking remotes (windows)

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- No public GitHub repository available -

What is Git?

Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

What is SourceTree?

Use the full capability of Git and Mercurial in the SourceTree desktop app. Manage all your repositories, hosted or local, through SourceTree's simple interface.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

What companies use Git?
What companies use SourceTree?
See which teams inside your own company are using Git or SourceTree.
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What tools integrate with Git?
What tools integrate with SourceTree?

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Blog Posts

Mar 24 2021 at 12:57PM

Pinterest

GitJenkinsKafka+7
3
2052
GitJenkinsGroovy+4
4
2514
GitCloudBees+2
3
4355
Git.NETCloudBees+3
6
1042
Mar 4 2020 at 5:14PM

Atlassian

GitBitbucketWindows+4
3
942
GitNode.jsFirebase+5
7
2291
What are some alternatives to Git and SourceTree?
GitHub
GitHub is the best place to share code with friends, co-workers, classmates, and complete strangers. Over three million people use GitHub to build amazing things together.
SVN (Subversion)
Subversion exists to be universally recognized and adopted as an open-source, centralized version control system characterized by its reliability as a safe haven for valuable data; the simplicity of its model and usage; and its ability to support the needs of a wide variety of users and projects, from individuals to large-scale enterprise operations.
Bitbucket
Bitbucket gives teams one place to plan projects, collaborate on code, test and deploy, all with free private Git repositories. Teams choose Bitbucket because it has a superior Jira integration, built-in CI/CD, & is free for up to 5 users.
Perforce
Visibility, access control, workflow and code management for Git environments. Flexibility of collaborating on the same codebase and code reviews using any combination of Perforce and Git workflows and tools without compromise.
Mercurial
Mercurial is dedicated to speed and efficiency with a sane user interface. It is written in Python. Mercurial's implementation and data structures are designed to be fast. You can generate diffs between revisions, or jump back in time within seconds.
See all alternatives