
SmartGit
tig
GitKraken
SourceTree
git-cola
GitHub Desktop
Fork
Front-end to the git revision control system for emacs.

GitLab
BitBucket
VS Code
Git
Treehouse
Pantheon
CodePen
Originally founded as a project to simplify sharing code, GitHub has grown into an application used by over a million people to store over two million code repositories, making GitHub the largest code host in the world.

Which is more popular?
Based on our record, GitHub seems to be a lot more popular than Magit. While we know about 2484 links to GitHub, we've tracked only 6 mentions of Magit.
Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.
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|---|---|---|
| Website | github.com | github.com |
| Pricing | — | |
| Company | — | Startup from the United States · 500 - 999 employees · 2008 |
| Listed in |
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.


Overall verdict
Why this product is good
Recommended for
Developers and software engineers who use Emacs as their primary text editor, especially those who are looking for a powerful and efficient way to manage Git repositories without leaving their editor.
Overall verdict
Why this product is good
Recommended for
Walkthroughs and reviews on video.
Magit Introduction and Demonstration
More videos
How to do coding peer reviews with Github
More videos
How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.


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


Magit is not a separate Git desktop client – it is a free plugin with an original text-based interface. It is implemented as a GNU Emacs package to use on Windows, Mac, and Linux. The plugin allows the developers to...
GitHub is an essential platform for modern software development. It makes it easy to host, manage, and collaborate on code while providing powerful tools for version control, project management, and team...
GitHub Discussions is a communication forum for the community around an open source or internal project. Discussions enable fluid, open conversation in a public forum. Discussions are transparent and accessible, but...
However, like any (human) product, the platform has its limits, downsides, and critics. GitHub has been barred by certain governments, and even if that isn’t exactly the company’s fault, the users are the ones limited...
Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.


There're multiple solutions like this and I've used some of them over the past years. - There's obviously the fantastic Magit (https://github.com/magit/magit) I did use this for a long time but recently switched over to LazyGit for the... - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
If you use magit, it has magit-wip-mode to automatically commit changes to tracked files in working and index trees into wip refs per branch. Source: about 4 years ago
Magit because it's a great git frontend. Source: about 4 years ago
For developers who cannot access Fable 5, Claude Opus 4.8 offers the best alternative. Integrating this model into your daily workflow is straightforward, especially when using modern development platforms like GitHub for repository... - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
1228 push attempts died with fatal: could not read Username for 'https://github.com' — an https remote with no credential helper and no stored Credentials. First one 2026-07-21T20:48:03Z, still failing as I write this. Thirty-nine Days. - Source: dev.to / 24 days ago
They can include the protocol, it’s that regardless of what’s put in there it’ll use https, which is explained with examples both in the following sentences and then in more detail in a linked doc. > For repositories on GitHub, GitLab,... - Source: Hacker News / 27 days ago
When comparing Magit and GitHub, you can also consider the following products.

SmartGit is a front-end for the distributed version control system Git and runs on Windows, Mac OS...
Compare SmartGit to Magit or GitHub:

Create, review and deploy code together with GitLab open source git repo management software | GitLab
Compare GitLab to Magit or GitHub:

TIG Software Updates & Expansions. Download the most up-to-date, innovative software solutions for your TIG welder instantly to a memory card for enhanced performance.
Compare tig to Magit or GitHub:

Bitbucket is a free code hosting site for Mercurial and Git. Manage your development with a hosted wiki, issue tracker and source code.
Compare BitBucket to Magit or GitHub:

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

Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft
Compare VS Code to Magit or GitHub: