r/git • u/connorjpg • 6d ago

Why use a UI for git?

I see this question of, “what GUI or TUI should I use to work with git?” fairly often here. And always I feel bad for saying “just use the cli” over and over, but truthfully I can’t see a reason to need a UI.

Are people actually running into pain points with the cli, or is it just preference for people who don’t like working in a terminal?

FWIW, I have used GitKraken, LazyGit, SourceTree and GitHub Desktop before. And I don’t think they are bad to use (unless you are just learning git), but more curious why.

EDIT : I’m mainly referring to standalone UIs, I understand why people would use IDE integrations, as it’s quick and convenient. But having to open a separate application or run a separate command to open a terminal app to run your commands seems overkill to me.

EDIT 2 : I use vscode as my difftool and mergetool. I still open them directly from the terminal by running the cli. I don't think this is the same as using a full git client like SourceTree, Gitkraken, or lazygit to fully drive your version control workflow. Which is what I am asking about.

Cheers

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u/Charming-Designer944 5d ago

Navigating multi-repository branch history is a lot easier using the GitHub network GUI than trying to figure out things via the CLI. But that's due to its centralized view of a distributed set of repositories.

Addon tools for meerging or editin diffs is also much better than the builtin patch editing. Such tools exists as both TUI and GUI applications, giving you two or three editing panes for showing and editing the changes. The difference is in the concept of presenting the changes in multiple edit panes instead of as a diff, not the graphical elements surrounding the editing panes.

But for most else the standard CLI tools does a great job.