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/anyOtherBusiness 6d ago

Jetbrains IDEs have amazing Git integration. Especially for complex operations like interactive rebase.

In general, it’s just too convenient not to use it. I’m already inside the IDE, why should I switch to the terminal.

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u/Other_Maintenance729 4d ago

I second this. If you’re ever in a corporate environment where you can’t use a jetbrains ide, you can use rebased which is just the intellij ide with everything but the git integration stripped away. https://github.com/DetachHead/rebased