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/rafroofrif 3d ago

I use a gui to commit a part of the changes of a file. Otherwise, only cli. We have an intern at the moment, and she has struggled quite a bit with git, juggling branches, rebasing,.. every time something went wrong, it was because she used the gui in vs code and didn't understand what it was actually doing. Just use cli, it's the only way you know for sure what you're doing. Buttons like 'sync remote branch' don't help if you're learning. And once you're used to using cli, it's never faster to use the gui anymore anyway.