
GitKraken
SourceTree
SmartGit
Fork
Tower
TortoiseGit
GitHub
GitHub Desktop is a seamless way to contribute to projects on GitHub and GitHub Enterprise.

Sway
dwm
Openbox
awesome
bspwm
Fluxbox
Hyprland
A dynamic tiling window manager designed for X11, inspired by wmii, and written in C.

Which is more popular?
GitHub Desktop might be a bit more popular than i3. We know about 136 links to it since March 2021 and only 93 links to i3.
Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.
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| Website | desktop.github.com | i3wm.org |
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What each product offers, as listed by its team.


Possible disadvantages
Possible disadvantages
An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.


No analysis of GitHub Desktop yet.
Overall verdict
Why this product is good
Recommended for
i3wm is recommended for advanced users, developers, and anyone who prefers a keyboard-centric interface. It is ideal for users who like to customize their environment extensively and are comfortable with configuring software via text files. New users with a willingness to learn may also find it rewarding.
Walkthroughs and reviews on video.
GitHub Desktop 2.0 -- Easy Mode Version Control
More videos
30k Miles with the BMW i3 - End of Lease Review
More videos
How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.


Share your experience with using GitHub Desktop and i3. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
External articles and on-site reviews we used to compare the two products.


Creating branches and switching to existing ones isn’t a hassle, so is merging code with the master branch. Furthermore, you can track your changes with GitHub Desktop. Check out our detailed guide on how to use...
GitHub Desktop is the global standard for working with Git-related tasks in a graphical user interface (GUI). It is an open-source tool and hence completely free to use for all sorts of projects. It is available for...
GitHub Desktop is, perhaps, the most famous solution for working with Git in a visual interface. It is familiar to all developers keeping their repositories on GitHub (Git repository hosting service used for...
Sway is a tiling Wayland i3-compatible window manager that dynamically arranges app windows to rationally maximise desktop space. It is free, open-source, and lightweight. By default, it arranges windows in a grid and...
i3-wm is one of my most loved standalone window managers, qualifying it to easily fit under the desktop environment list! The configuration is just very easy, and you can change everything that you see on screen. This...
Sway is a free, open-source, and lightweight tiling Wayland i3-compatible window manager that automatically arranges app windows to logically maximize desktop space. It arranges windows into a grid by default and...
Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.


Optional: You can also download GitHub Desktop (https://desktop.github.com) if you prefer a GUI version, but this guide focuses on Git Bash to understand the basics. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
Download the latest version from the GitHub Desktop website. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
I’m not going to dive into Git commands here — you can find plenty of tutorials online. If you’re not a fan of using the plain terminal CLI, you can also manage repositories with tools like GitHub Desktop or SourceTree, which provide a... - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
In my case, I decided to go with a compositor instead of desktop environment. I have already used others windows tilling managers such as i3wm. This time, I want something that has more features out-of-the-box. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
I've been using Omarchy as my main setup since June 26, 2025, the day DHH released the first version. Before that I had my own custom Opinionated Linux, mclovin-ARCHived: an Arch + i3wm installer set up exactly the way I liked. It was... - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
Then few years back, in 2015, I got shown i3wm and used it on my ubuntu-netinstall until 2020, then I switched to Budgie and my personal laptop has been using that ever since. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
When comparing GitHub Desktop and i3, you can also consider the following products.

The intuitive, fast, and beautiful cross-platform Git client.
Compare GitKraken to GitHub Desktop or i3:

Sway is a drop-in replacement for the i3 window manager, but for Wayland instead of X11.
Compare Sway to GitHub Desktop or i3:

Mac and Windows client for Mercurial and Git.
Compare SourceTree to GitHub Desktop or i3:

dwm is a dynamic window manager for X. It manages windows in tiled, monocle and floating layouts. All of the layouts can be applied dynamically, optimising the environment for the application in use and the task performed.
Compare dwm to GitHub Desktop or i3:

SmartGit is a front-end for the distributed version control system Git and runs on Windows, Mac OS...
Compare SmartGit to GitHub Desktop or i3:
Openbox is a highly configurable, next generation window manager with extensive standards support.
Compare Openbox to GitHub Desktop or i3: