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GitHub vs Gitter: What are the differences?
Key Differences between GitHub and Gitter
Functionality: GitHub is primarily a code hosting platform that offers version control, collaboration tools, and project management features. It allows users to track changes, manage code repositories, and collaborate with team members. On the other hand, Gitter is a communication platform designed specifically for developers. It provides real-time chat rooms, allowing developers to have discussions, share code snippets, and engage in conversations related to programming.
Focus: GitHub focuses on providing a platform for hosting and managing code repositories. It offers version control features, issue tracking, code review tools, and project management capabilities. Additionally, it allows developers to collaborate on projects using features like pull requests and code reviews. Gitter, on the other hand, places its main emphasis on facilitating real-time conversations and discussions among developers. It aims to provide a platform for developers to connect with each other, ask questions, and engage in community-driven discussions.
Community: GitHub has a large and active community of developers, with millions of users and numerous open-source projects hosted on the platform. It serves as a hub for developers to contribute to projects, discover new repositories, and showcase their work. Gitter, while also having a developer-focused community, is more centered around real-time interactions. It provides a platform for developers to join specific chat rooms based on their interests or projects, enabling them to connect with like-minded individuals and discuss topics of mutual interest.
Integration: GitHub offers extensive integration capabilities, allowing developers to connect their repositories with various tools and services. It integrates with popular development tools, such as continuous integration systems, project management platforms, and code quality analysis tools. Gitter, on the other hand, is limited in terms of integration options. While it allows users to add widgets and badges to their GitHub repositories, it primarily operates as a standalone communication platform with less emphasis on interconnecting with other tools.
Interface: GitHub provides a comprehensive web interface where users can browse code, view pull requests, manage issues, and perform various other code-related activities. It offers a visually appealing and user-friendly interface with a focus on code and collaboration. Gitter, on the other hand, is primarily chat-based and offers a simple and minimalist interface. It emphasizes real-time conversations and displays messages in chronological order, making it easy for developers to engage in quick and focused discussions.
Ownership: GitHub is owned by Microsoft, a technology giant with a wide range of products and services. Being a part of Microsoft, GitHub benefits from its resources, infrastructure, and support. Gitter, on the other hand, is not owned by Microsoft and operates as an independent entity. While both platforms have their own sets of features and advantages, GitHub's connection to Microsoft provides additional stability and trustworthiness.
In Summary, GitHub is primarily a code hosting and collaboration platform with a strong focus on version control and project management, while Gitter is a real-time chat platform aimed at facilitating developer discussions and interactions.
From a StackShare Community member: “We’re about to start a chat group for our open source project (over 5K stars on GitHub) so we can let our community collaborate more closely. The obvious choice would be Slack (k8s and a ton of major projects use it), but we’ve seen Gitter (webpack uses it) for a lot of open source projects, Discord (Vue.js moved to them), and as of late I’m seeing Spectrum more and more often. Does anyone have experience with these or other alternatives? Is it even worth assessing all these options, or should we just go with Slack? Some things that are important to us: free, all the regular integrations (GitHub, Heroku, etc), mobile & desktop apps, and open source is of course a plus."
We use Slack to increase productivity by simplifying communication and putting Slack in the middle of our communication workflow #Communications #Collaboration
We use Discord to tracking some action and errors (logs / alerting / assertion). it's free and simple to use with mobile application et notifications
We use Slack because we can let "tools talk to us" and automate processes in our dev team using bots.
Our Discord Server is our n°1 community stop; we gather feedback from our users from here, discuss about new features, announce new releases, and so on.
We even use it for internal meetings and calls !
Do you review your Pull/Merge Request before assigning Reviewers?
If you work in a team opening a Pull Request (or Merge Request) looks appropriate. However, have you ever thought about opening a Pull/Merge Request when working by yourself? Here's a checklist of things you can review in your own:
- Pick the correct target branch
- Make Drafts explicit
- Name things properly
- Ask help for tools
- Remove the noise
- Fetch necessary data
- Understand Mergeability
- Pass the message
- Add screenshots
- Be found in the future
- Comment inline in your changes
Read the blog post for more detailed explanation for each item :D
What else do you review before asking for code review?
Using an inclusive language is crucial for fostering a diverse culture. Git has changed the naming conventions to be more language-inclusive, and so you should change. Our development tools, like GitHub and GitLab, already supports the change.
SourceLevel deals very nicely with repositories that changed the master branch to a more appropriate word. Besides, you can use the grep linter the look for exclusive terms contained in the source code.
As the inclusive language gap may happen in other aspects of our lives, have you already thought about them?
One of the magic tricks git performs is the ability to rewrite log history. You can do it in many ways, but git rebase -i
is the one I most use. With this command, It’s possible to switch commits order, remove a commit, squash two or more commits, or edit, for instance.
It’s particularly useful to run it before opening a pull request. It allows developers to “clean up” the mess and organize commits before submitting to review. If you follow the practice 3 and 4, then the list of commits should look very similar to a task list. It should reveal the rationale you had, telling the story of how you end up with that final code.
Out of most of the VCS solutions out there, we found Gitlab was the most feature complete with a free community edition. Their DevSecops offering is also a very robust solution. Gitlab CI/CD was quite easy to setup and the direct integration with your VCS + CI/CD is also a bonus. Out of the box integration with major cloud providers, alerting through instant messages etc. are all extremely convenient. We push our CI/CD updates to MS Teams.
Gitlab as A LOT of features that GitHub and Azure DevOps are missing. Even if both GH and Azure are backed by Microsoft, GitLab being open source has a faster upgrade rate and the hosted by gitlab.com solution seems more appealing than anything else! Quick win: the UI is way better and the Pipeline is way easier to setup on GitLab!
At DeployPlace we use self-hosted GitLab, we have chosen GitLab as most of us are familiar with it. We are happy with all features GitLab provides, I can’t imagine our life without integrated GitLab CI. Another important feature for us is integrated code review tool, we use it every day, we use merge requests, code reviews, branching. To be honest, most of us have GitHub accounts as well, we like to contribute in open source, and we want to be a part of the tech community, but lack of solutions from GitHub in the area of CI doesn’t let us chose it for our projects.
Pros of GitHub
- Open source friendly1.8K
- Easy source control1.5K
- Nice UI1.3K
- Great for team collaboration1.1K
- Easy setup868
- Issue tracker504
- Great community487
- Remote team collaboration483
- Great way to share449
- Pull request and features planning442
- Just works147
- Integrated in many tools132
- Free Public Repos122
- Github Gists116
- Github pages113
- Easy to find repos83
- Open source62
- Easy to find projects60
- It's free60
- Network effect56
- Extensive API49
- Organizations43
- Branching42
- Developer Profiles34
- Git Powered Wikis32
- Great for collaboration30
- It's fun24
- Clean interface and good integrations23
- Community SDK involvement22
- Learn from others source code20
- Because: Git16
- It integrates directly with Azure14
- Standard in Open Source collab10
- Newsfeed10
- Fast8
- Beautiful user experience8
- It integrates directly with Hipchat8
- Easy to discover new code libraries7
- It's awesome6
- Smooth integration6
- Cloud SCM6
- Nice API6
- Graphs6
- Integrations6
- Hands down best online Git service available5
- Reliable5
- Quick Onboarding5
- CI Integration5
- Remarkable uptime5
- Security options4
- Loved by developers4
- Uses GIT4
- Free HTML hosting4
- Easy to use and collaborate with others4
- Version Control4
- Simple but powerful4
- Unlimited Public Repos at no cost4
- Nice to use3
- IAM3
- Ci3
- Easy deployment via SSH3
- Free private repos2
- Good tools support2
- All in one development service2
- Never dethroned2
- Easy source control and everything is backed up2
- Issues tracker2
- Self Hosted2
- IAM integration2
- Very Easy to Use2
- Easy to use2
- Leads the copycats2
- Free HTML hostings2
- Easy and efficient maintainance of the projects2
- Beautiful2
- Dasf1
- Profound1
Pros of Gitter
- Github integration63
- Free55
- Markdown support45
- Markdown19
- Graceful integration17
- Project-oriented16
- MARKDOOOOWN15
- IRC bridge12
- Integrates with everything9
- LaTeX8
- Apps available for most platforms4
- Cross-repository issue reference2
- Github login2
- IRC support1
- My new fav'rite thing is on it1
- Very fast work1
- Very open1
- Now open source1
- Open source1
- Free unlimited archives1
- Open access (no invitation needed)1
- Single account for all communities1
- Free, open & free hosting1
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Cons of GitHub
- Owned by micrcosoft55
- Expensive for lone developers that want private repos38
- Relatively slow product/feature release cadence15
- API scoping could be better10
- Only 3 collaborators for private repos9
- Limited featureset for issue management4
- Does not have a graph for showing history like git lens3
- GitHub Packages does not support SNAPSHOT versions2
- No multilingual interface1
- Takes a long time to commit1
- Expensive1
Cons of Gitter
- Sends data to US Gov2