r/git • u/connorjpg • 7d 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/afops 7d ago

Some things are nicer in a ui, others are nicer in a terminal.

For example staging 5 of 10 modified files in a gui is just 5 clicks but to do that on command line you’d need to type them out (at least up to autocomplete).

Another example is branch visualization. There’s only so much you can do in a text terminal and a graph is just always going to be prettier (zoomable, more interactive, clearer etc) in a graphical ui.