Interfaces, frontends, and tools

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Contents

Frontends and Interfaces

Version Control Interface layers

git-wizard

git wizard - handy wrapper script

git-m

git-m is multiple git replication and management utility. It allows in one line command replicate tree of git repositories to another host.

Zit

Zit by Giuseppe Bilotta is the Git-based single file content tracker; it uses Git to independently track single files within a directory; sort of like what RCS does, but with the power, flexibility, elegance and ease of use of Git. Still in alpha stage.

Gitless

Gitless is an experiment to see what happens if you put a simple veneer on Git, and change its underlying concepts.

Historical

  • Easy Git (eg) Easy Git is a wrapper for Git that is designed to make Git easy to learn and use. Easy Git aims to be easily learnable, interchangeable with Git, fully capable, and compatible with Git. Users can move back and forth between using Easy Git and Git itself.
  • vng is a Darcs-like Git porcelain by Thomas Zander.
  • (Archived since 2018.) fgit (Folder Git) runs a Git command in several repositories. Use to garbage collect, check status, pull or anything else on multiple repositories in a single command.
  • yap (Yet Another Git Porcelain) Yap is an alternative porcelain for Git that is designed to have a friendlier, more orthogonal interface. It is also easily extensible with Python plugins.

Interfaces to other programming languages

C

  • libgit2 is a project to replace the core parts of Git with an implementation reusable for language bindings and higher-level applications.

Perl

  • Git::CPAN::Patch provides a suite of Git commands aimed at making trivially easy the process of grabbing any distribution off CPAN, stuffing it in a local Git repository and, once gleeful hacking has been perpetrated, sending back patches to its maintainer.
  • Git::PurePerl is pure Perl interface to Git repositories. It was mostly based on Grit (described below).
  • Git::Wrapper is a Perl interface to the Git executables. It provides an API that uses Perl data structures for argument passing, instead of CLI-style --options as Git.pm does.

Python

  • Dulwich is a pure-Python read-write implementation of the Git file formats and protocols. It is named after the village in which Mr. and Mrs. Git live in the Monty Python sketch. A Git repository can be found at git://git.samba.org/jelmer/dulwich.git and its gitweb here.
  • Pygit2 is a set of Python bindings to libgit2 (see above).
  • GitPython is a Python module that provides object model access to your Git repositories by calling the Git executables and parsing output. Once you have created a repository object, you can traverse it to find parent commit(s), trees, blobs, etc.. Port of the grit library in Ruby created by Tom Preston-Werner and Chris Wanstrath.
  • vcs is Various Control System abstraction layer written in Python. Uses mix of already mentioned Dulwich and Git binary for the Git backend. Provides simple yet fully featured interface and is under heavy development stage.

Ruby

  • Grit is a Ruby library for extracting information from a Git repository in an object oriented manner. This includes a partial native Ruby implementation, which is used for a number of the operations.
  • GitStore implements a versioned data store based on the revision management system Git. You can store object hierarchies as nested hashes, which will be mapped on the directory structure of a Git repository. Basically GitStore checks out the repository into a in-memory representation, which can be modified and finally committed. GitStore reads and writes the Git repository natively in Ruby.
  • GitRb is another partial native implementation of Git in Ruby similar to grit.
  • v is another Ruby library providing a Git adapter that makes working with Git repositories easy. Git operations are mapped almost 1:1 to ruby methods and executed in a separate thread returning futures when they're queued. It supports core Git objects and convenience objects (indexes, branches, ...) which will provide a convenient API. It is still under development, means except for few examples there is no real documentation and most of the Git operations still need to be implemented (first CommandLine wrapper (porcelain and plumbing), then pure Ruby (plumbing and then porcelain)).
  • Ruby/Git (deprecated) is a Ruby library that can be used to create, read and manipulate Git repositories. Unmaintained, abandoned in favor of mentioned above Grit.

Objective-C

  • ObjectiveGit is an Objective-C partial implementation of Git and a corresponding object level library that can be used to create, read and manipulate Git repositories. It also contains Git server implementations (receive-pack and upload-pack).

Java

  • JGit is a BSD licensed, pure Java implementation of the Git file format, core algorithms, and network transport protocols. It can be found embedded inside of many Git related applications, including EGit, Gerrit Code Review, NBGit, and JetBrains TeamCity.
  • JavaGit is an API providing access to Git repositories for Java applications. JavaGit is engineered to provide the developer with access to the raw Git commands through a command API as well as an object API designed to represent the .git repository, the working tree and other, familiar Git concepts. JavaGit uses the Git binaries installed on the host machine to provide Git functionality and has been designed to easily accommodate additional methods of access to Git repositories. JavaGit is released as open source software under the GNU LGPL license.
    Currently in early alpha version
    See also: NYU Open Source Programming Class Releases JavaGit API 0.1.0 Alpha thread on the Git mailing list.

PHP

  • glip, the Git library in PHP, provides read and write access to Git repositories without using exec() or system() calls. Therefore it works on many shared web hosting accounts.

.NET and Mono

  • dotGit (no activity since mid-2009) is an experimental implementation for .NET written in C#. It is still in it's early stages but can read objects from packed and loose storage. So all the read-only operations are supported. A diff engine is in the works.
  • Git# (no activity since late 2009) for .NET and Mono is written in C#. GitSharp provides a user friendly well documented API. It is aimed to be fully compatible to the original Git and can be either used as stand alone command line application or as library for gui frontends, IDE plugins, etc. The status of the project is beta.
  • NGit Automated jgit port to C#. The MonoDevelop team really wants to provide integrated support for Git in the IDE. GitSharp was a little bit outdated so it was a challenge to bring it up-to-date to match JGit. So they finally decided to use Sharpen, our open source Java to C# translator, to automatically convert the JGit code base to C# (details)

Haskell

  • hlibgit2 is a complete, FFI level wrapper around libgit2.
  • gitlib is an abstraction of the Git "model", allowing the use of many different backends, including forking command-line Git and hlibgit2.
  • hs-libgit provides a lowlevel interface in haskell using Git core through fork/exec. The goal is to make use of libgit2 as soon as it's usable.
  • hit is a read-write haskell reimplementation of Git's storage format. Completely inter-operable with the official Git tools. It doesn't use Git's CLI and provides some basic API to manipulate a Git store (reading from individual or packed objects, and writing).

JavaScript

  • git.js is a Git implementation written in pure JavaScript. Git.js is MIT licensed. It features both a command-line Git client for node.js and an in-browser repository API for accessing repos available via HTTP.

Patch-management Interface layers

StGIT (Stacked Git)

  • StGIT (homepage, tutorial, gitweb, GitHub) provides a Quilt-like patch management functionality (i.e. pushing/popping patches to/from a stack) in the Git environment. You can easily manage your patches in the scope of Git until they get merged upstream.
    See also: Quilt project page.

Guilt (formerly Git Queues (gq))

  • guilt (download, howto, manpage, gitweb, GitHub) by Josef "Jeff" Sipek is a series of Bash scripts which add a Mercurial queues-like functionality and interface to Git. The one distinguishing feature from other Quilt-like porcelains, is the format of the patches directory. All the information is stored as plain text - a series file and the patches (one per file). This easily lends itself to versioning the patches using any number of of SCMs.

cj-git-patchtool

  • cj-git-patchtool (GitHub) by Christian Jaeger is a tool to edit the history of a Git repository. It does this by turning the history in question into a set of Git patch files and a file containing the list of the patches.

TopGit

  • TopGit (GitHub) is a patch management interface done as a set of shell scripts, which can be used to manage a set of third-party patches on top of another project. It is a very thin layer on top of Git (allowing you to use the index); it attempts to keep all history of your changes until final cleanup; and it allows you to specify patch dependencies instead of linearizing patches in a patch series (patch queue).
    See also: TopGit - A different patch queue manager announcement on the Git mailing list.

Patchy Git (pg), deprecated

  • pg (homepage) by Shawn Pearce aims to help the user manage a set of patches on top of the current branch. pg is somewhat like Quilt or StGIT, but it does have a slightly different feature set. Note that pg is no longer being actively developed.

Graphical Interfaces

Graphical Interfaces - Proprietary

Vershd

  • Vershd is the effortless Git GUI, free for personal use on Windows, Mac and Linux. It has a unique UI/UX that prevents errors and creates clarity. Vershd glides over your code repositories and then swoops down to quickly tackle branches, commits and files. This Git client handles source control so you can concentrate on coding.

GitKraken

  • GitKraken is a popular Git GUI client for Windows, Mac and Linux. It's free for non-commercial use. It's a great tool for Git beginners and advanced users to increase efficiency through the intuitive interface, seamless integrations and a faster, more fluid workflow.

gitSafe

  • gitSafe (homepage) by cmroanirgo is a SourceSafe-like GUI for Git using MFC. NOTE: This software is Closed Source.

SmartGit

  • SmartGit by Syntevo GmbH is a graphical Git client which runs on all major platforms (e.g. Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows). It requires (SUN-) Java 1.5 or newer as well as a Git installation. Closed source, free of charge for non-commercial usage.

SourceTree

  • SourceTree is a fast and friendly GUI for Git and Mercurial for Mac OS X 10.6+ and Windows 7+ (closed source, commercial). A trial version is available.

Agit (Android)

  • Agit is Git client for Android with features like pull-to-refresh fetching, periodic sync, and gently animated diff transitions. It's the first ever Git client targeted at mobile phone, and currently is a 'read-only' client, supporting clone & fetch, but not commit and push.

Working Copy (iOS)

  • Working Copy is a full-featured Git client for iOS. It supports cloning, fetching, committing, pushing and merging. Using iOS app extensions it provides read/write access to repositories from other applications.

Tower

  • Tower by Fournova is a graphical Git client for Mac OS X 10.8+ and Windows 7+ (closed source, commercial). A trial version is available.

GitVine

  • GitVine by Insane Sharpness, is a Graphical Git Client for Windows10, Linux & macOS. Inspired by Clearcase Version Tree. Completely Free. Supports both Viewing and Modifications. Also has an integrated terminal for full Git control.

GitHub Desktop

Graphical Interfaces - FLOSS

Git Watcher

  • Git Watcher [1] is a multi-platform desktop app that shows real-time diff file information for working directory and index and allows you to commit/push changes. It also organizes submodules in tabs and has many other options and tools. Currently in development!

Cocoon

  • Cocoon [2] is a KDE 4 playground project to create a GUI for Git.

gitk (distributed with Git)

  • gitk is a simple Tcl/Tk GUI for browsing history of Git repositories easily, distributed with Git.

git-gui (distributed with Git)

  • git-gui by Shawn Pearce is a tool for creating commits and managing branches. It was inspired by and initially based on gitool. Written in Tcl/Tk. Stable versions are shipped with Core Git since version 1.5.

tig (Text-mode Interface for Git)

  • tig (homepage) by Jonas Fonseca is a simple Git repository browser written using ncurses. Basically, it just acts as a front-end for `git-log` and `git-show`/`git-diff`. Additionally, you can also use it as a pager for Git commands.

QGit

  • QGit (homepage) is a Qt GUI for browsing the history of Git repositories. It can also act as a commit tool, a file annotation and modification history browser, and as a graphical interface to StGIT. The sources for the latest, 2.5 version are available at http://repo.or.cz/w/qgit4/redivivus.git. This version compiles with Qt4 and is directly portable to Linux, Windows and MacOS.

CodeReview

  • CodeReview (homepage) is a Qt GUI written in Python for browsing the history of Git repositories and show a side-by-side diff of the changes similar to kdiff. It is a clone of the QBzr diff tool. It is thus a local code review tool and not a complete GUI for git. It should work on Linux and MacOS.

Giggle

  • Giggle (homepage) is a graphical frontend for browsing history of Git repositories (think of gitk on GTK+). Result of a Hackathon 2007, later developed by Imendio's Carlos Garnacho and Sven Herzberg and then by Mathias Hasselmann. Currently maintained by the GNOME community. Available from http://git.gnome.org/browse/giggle/

gitview (in `contrib/`)

  • GitView is a GTK based repository browser for Git written in Python by Aneesh Kumar K.V. It can be found in `contrib/` directory of Git source tree.

git-forest

  • git-forest (git-forest file and manpage) is a text-based tree visualizer, using Unicode characters for tree graphics. Part of its key features are: display of tags, heads and other refs (like gitk), constantly vertical branch graphics (allows to follow a branch with the mouse easily), display of octopus merges. It can also display history in reverse.

A screenshot may be found at git-forest.png. Written in Perl by Jan Engelhardt.
See also: text-based tree visualizer announcement on the Git mailing list.

GitForce

  • GitForce (homepage, GitHub) by Goran Devic is a Git frontend GUI for both Windows and Linux. It is in active development.

Qct

  • Qct (Mercurial repository) by Steve Borho is Qt/PyQt based GUI commit tool, meant to be SCM and platform agnostic. Supports Mercurial (`hg`), Bazaar (`bzr`), Cogito (but not Git directly atm), Subversion (`svn`), Monotone (`mnt`) and CVS. The README mentions gct (also on this page), as an alternative supporting plain Git. License: uknown/ no license.

git-cola

  • git-cola (GitHub, homepage, gitweb) by David Aguilar is an advanced Git commit tool, similar to git-gui, written in PyQt4. git-cola features a graphical 2D history viewer, easy, interactive partial-diff staging, inotify support, and more. You can get tarballs at http://cola.tuxfamily.org/. Native packages exist for Debian, Fedora, and Arch. Mac OSX and Windows builds are available on the website.

GitX

  • GitX (homepage, GitHub, download) by Pieter de Bie, Germán Laullón and others is a gitk clone aiming to provide a more native interface to MacOS X users with OS X-only features. It has a native interface and tries to integrate with the operating system as good as possible. Examples of this are drag and drop support and QuickLook support.
    See also: GitX v0.1: Gitk clone for OS X post on the Git mailing list.

Git Extensions

  • Git Extensions (GitHub) is a toolkit for Windows users. The main feature is a shell extension that enables a context menu in Windows Exlorer to use most Git functions. The toolkit also contains a standalone GUI and a Visual Studio 2005/2008 plugin. The toolkit is mainly written in C#, the shell extensions code is written in C++. The toolkit is still under development, there is a beta version downloadable here: http://code.google.com/p/gitextensions/
    See also: Announcement: Git Extensions stable (windows shell extensions) on the Git mailing list.

TortoiseGit

  • TortoiseGit (gitweb) by Li Frank is a port of TortoiseSVN to Git. It is Microsoft Windows Explorer extension, written in C++. As of March 2017, TortoiseGit is at version 2.4.0.0 and implements a full set of git tasks such as create, browse and clone repositories, pull, commit, push, show log, diff two versions, create branches and tags, create patches etc.

Dreamweaver GIT (GITWeaver Dreamweaver Tortoise Extension)

  • GITWeaver by Chris McKee is an Adobe Dreamweaver (MX->CS5) extension that adds TortoiseGIT functionality to Adobe Dreamweaver. Windows Compatible. GPL/MIT license.

git-cheetah

  • git-cheetah is a cross platform filemanager plugin. It was started as a Windows explorer extension so the standard gui tools (namely Git Gui, Gitk History, Git Gui Blame) of Git would be available from the filemanager. It has been ported to Mac OS X (Finder before 10.6) and Gnome Nautilus. Written completely in C, it has a simple infrastructure ready to add more plugin implementations. You can find the repository at http://repo.or.cz/w/git-cheetah.git.

gitg

  • gitg (gitg) by Jesse van den Kieboom is a clone of GitX for gtk+/GNOME. As such it tries to follow the implementation of GitX closely, while providing tight integration into the GNOME desktop.

git-age

  • git-age is a `git blame` visualizer, written using PyGTK. Shows the file with information on author, commit etc on each line. Also colors the background of the line darker for older commits and lighter for newer commits. Useful for quickly seeing what parts of a file have changed recently. Will also attempt to retrieve Gravatars for all authors in the file asynchronously.

StupidGit

  • StupidGit by Ákos Gyimesi is a cross-platform Git GUI written in wxPython. It tries to be easy to use for beginners and has advanced support for submodules. It is quite early in development, but already implements many features including merge, cherry-pick and easy switching between versions.

GitUI

  • GitUI is a terminal based cross-platform Git UI written in Rust. GitUI focuses on ease of use and performance in big repositories, while providing support for executing otherwise more complicated tasks on the git shell.

Summary (feature matrix)

written in UI toolkit Open Source last activity tree view history viewer history search (un)stage files partial staging undo diff fragments checkout cherry-pick committing remote features stash format patch interfaces w/ external diff viewers diff +/- highlighting compare commits merge features inotify support interactive rebase apply patches via drag'n'drop i18n Screenshot
gitk Tcl Tk yes 2008 X X X X X X X X de, es, it, sv X
git-gui Tcl Tk yes 2008 ext X X X X X X X de, fr, hu, it, ja, ru, sv, zh_cn X
tig C curses yes 2008 X X X X X X X X X  ?  ? X
QGit C++ Qt yes 2008 X X X X X X X X X  ?  ? X
Giggle C GTK+  ? 2009 X X X X X X X  ?  ? ca, de, en_GB, es, fr, ja, pl, sv, vi X
gitview Python GTK+ yes 2006 X X X  ?  ? X
git-forest Perl - yes 2008 X X  ?  ? X
gct Python Qt  ? 2007 X  ?  ? (gct)
pmpu Python Qt4  ? 2008 X X X  ?  ? X
Qct Python Qt yes 2008 X X  ?  ? X
git-cola Python Qt4 yes 2011 ext X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X  ? X partial de, fr, hu, it, ja, ru, sv, zh_cn X
GitNub ObjC, Ruby Cocoa  ? 2008 X X X X  ?  ? X
GitX ObjC Cocoa yes 2008 X X X X X X X X  ?  ? X
Pyrite Python  ?  ? 2008  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ? (Pyrite)
gitSafe C++ MFC no 2008 X X X X X  ?  ?  ? X
teamGit C++ Qt4  ? 2008 X X X X X X X some X X X X
Git Extensions C#, C++ - yes 2011 X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
TortoiseGit C++ MFC yes 2017 Explore X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
gitg C GTK+ yes 2010 X X X X X X X X some X X X X X
SmartGit Java Swing  ? 2009 X X X X X X X X some X X X X X
StupidGit Python wxWidgets  ? 2009 X X X X X X X X X X
SourceTree ObjC, C++ Cocoa no 2015 X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
Agit Java Android yes 2011 X X X X X X
Working Copy ObjC UIKit no 2016 X X X X X X
GitUI Rust crossterm yes 2020 X X X X X X X X X
GitVine Python Qt no 2021 X X X X X X X some X X X X

Deprecated and stalled projects

  • (h)gct (gitweb) by Fredrik Kuivinen is a GUI enabled commit tool. It has support for both Git and Mercurial. In Debian in commit-tool package. Written in PyQt. Does not support Git 1.6 and higher.
  • gitool (announcement, download, gitweb) by Paul Mackerras is a tool for creating commits. Superseded by git-gui (see above). Last development activity in 2007. Written in Tcl/Tk.
  • GitNub (homepage, GitHub) by Justin Palmer is an Mac OSX Leopard client for Git written in Ruby and Objective-C.
  • KGit (http://kgit.sourceforge.net/) by Abhijit Bhopatkar is intended to be a small but functional frontend to the popular source control program, Git. It is similar to gitk with two significant differences. First of all, it is written in Qt using lop and the KDE libraries. Secondly, it is not only a repository viewer, unlike gitk. It is now defunct and deprecated by the author. Has no future.
  • pmpu (Push Me Pull You) by Mark Williamson is a graphical interface for a distributed version control system. Currently it contains proof-of-concept supports the Mercurial, Git and bzr systems. PMPU can make use of external history views and commit tools. Preview release. As of November '09, no developer activity for more than 1 year.
  • Katana ([3]) a comprehensive Git UI that focuses on making common operations easy. Visual diffs supported.
  • RepoWatch (homepage) is a graphical client for Mac OS X that provides very quick access to the basics of Git or Mercurial with minimal effort: just press Command-Option-Enter.
  • GitJungle ([4]) is a graphical branch explorer displaying branch history horizontally instead of vertically as most Git graphical tools do. It shows merge links, commits, tags and branches and displays diffs when clicking on a specific commit. It runs on Windows, MacOS X and Linux. It is free and requires Mono to run.
  • teamGit (http://www.devslashzero.com/teamgit) by Abhijit Bhopatkar is a successor of kgit. It is intended to be a complete development workflow management app with Git as a base tool. As of oct 2008 it can be used as a pretty good commit tool. Please see feature table below.
  • pyrite by Govind Salinas is a Git GUI and front end written in Python.
  • Qt Creator is a lightweight, cross-platform integrated development environment (IDE) for developing with Qt that provides a built in GUI for working with Git repositories.
  • RabbitVCS is a set of graphical tools written to provide simple and straightforward access to the version control systems you use. Currently, it is integrated into the Nautilus file manager and supports Git (0.14 Beta 1) and Subversion, but the goal is to incorporate other version control systems as well as other file managers. Runs on Linux.
  • Gource is a software version control visualization tool. Software projects are displayed by Gource as an animated tree with the root directory of the project at its centre. Directories appear as branches with files as leaves. Developers can be seen working on the tree at the times they contributed to the project.

Web Interfaces - need to move these

Sprout (formerly GitMac) (Mac OS X)

  • Sprout (homepage) Sprout is an App for Mac OS X that focuses on being a fast, user-friendly Git client. For developers who are new to Git, transitioning from Subversion, or just want a nice Mac UI alternative. Focuses on browsing and managing repositories and branches, and making common operations easy.

Web Interfaces

GitLab

  • GitLab is a fast, secure and stable solution based on Rails & Gitolite. Free and open-source. Distributed under the MIT License.

gitweb (distributed with Git)

  • gitweb provides full-fledged web interface for Git repositories. It is written in Perl and was maintained by Kay Sievers; from Git version 1.4.0 it is distributed with Git: Git on the Server - GitWeb

GitList

  • GitList is an elegant and modern web interface for interacting with multiple Git repositories. It allows you to browse repositories using your favorite browser, viewing files under different revisions, commit history, diffs. It also generates RSS feeds for each repository, allowing you to stay up-to-date with the latest changes anytime, anywhere. GitList was written in PHP, on top of the Silex microframework and powered by the Twig template engine. This means that GitList is easy to install and easy to customize. Also, the GitList gorgeous interface was made possible due to Bootstrap.

P3X Enhanced GitList

  • P3X Enhanced GitList is a fork of the klaussilveira Gitlist. What is different about is, that it requires/uses the latest PHP version, works with sub-modules. Update all dependencies with monthly release. With big GIT repos/commits, it works with 64Mb memory (some Twig templates are removed and moved to the client and web workers - eg. huge diffs). You will love it to work it on OpenWrt. Provides multiple themes with dark mode - 11 light and 5 dark. Code editor with syntax highlighting, editable files. All changes in the original fork are synced with the enhanced version. 100% responsive with Bootstrap 3. Latest Fontawesome for icons. The markdown engine uses Emojis with Twitter's Emojis. Besides, the commits and logs are parsed as Markdown and Emojis. The live is at https://gitlist.patrikx3.com/.

klaus

  • klaus (Demo) is a standalone, zero-configuration-required Git viewer written in Python (WSGI) that ships with a minimalist but elegant Web interface inspired by GitHub. klaus is developed by Jonas Haag.

WebGit .NET

  • WebGit .NET IIS Hosting for Git "Smart HTTP" using ASP.NET MVC. It is written in C# and is hosted on Github.com. Aimed at internal hosting of Git repositories in a windows environment, it supports syntax highlighting via SHJS and post-create hooks. Latest commit on 2016.

ginatra

  • ginatra (GitHub, demo) is web interface written in Ruby using Sinatra web framework.


GitPHP

  • GitPHP (demo) is a PHP Git web interface with gitweb-like look (the xmms2 fork of Git), created by Christopher Han. It makes use of Smarty templates, so it can be easily modified and customized. It offers syntax highlighting via GeSHi PHP class, has support for snapshots and projects categories; it can be run with msysGit.

viewgit

  • viewgit is another PHP web interface for Git, written from scratch. It aims to be easy to set up and upgrade, light on dependencies, and comfortable to use. It provides all basic features such as commitdiffs, RSS feeds of changes, downloading of trees, checkouts, syntax highlighting using GeSHi, etc.

cgit

gogs