Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Octokit VS GitHub Desktop

Compare Octokit VS GitHub Desktop and see what are their differences

Octokit logo Octokit

Official clients for the GitHub API. octokit has 45 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.

GitHub Desktop logo GitHub Desktop

GitHub Desktop is a seamless way to contribute to projects on GitHub and GitHub Enterprise.
  • Octokit Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-29
  • GitHub Desktop Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-02

Octokit features and specs

  • Comprehensive API Coverage
    Octokit offers comprehensive coverage of GitHub's REST and GraphQL APIs, making it a versatile tool for interacting with GitHub programmatically.
  • Language Support
    Octokit provides clients in multiple programming languages, including JavaScript, Ruby, and Python, catering to a wide range of developers.
  • Ease of Use
    With well-documented methods and clear organization, Octokit simplifies the process of making API calls, handling authentication, and managing complex requests.
  • Active Community
    Octokit is actively maintained and supported by a strong community, providing regular updates, bug fixes, and enhancements.
  • Extensible
    Octokit offers a plugin system that allows developers to extend its functionality according to specific requirements, providing flexibility and customization.

Possible disadvantages of Octokit

  • Complexity for Beginners
    Despite its thorough documentation, the variety of available methods and options can be overwhelming for beginners who are new to GitHub's API or programming.
  • Dependency Overhead
    Integrating Octokit in a project adds additional dependencies, which may increase project complexity and maintenance effort for smaller applications.
  • Version Compatibility
    With frequent updates, there might be challenges related to compatibility between Octokit's versions and GitHub's evolving API, requiring regular updates.
  • Resource Intensive
    When dealing with large-scale projects or repositories, Octokit can become resource-intensive, requiring optimization efforts to manage API rate limits efficiently.
  • Not Always Cutting-edge
    Octokit's responses might lag slightly behind GitHub's latest features or functionalities, meaning initial exposure to new GitHub features can be delayed until Octokit updates.

GitHub Desktop features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    GitHub Desktop offers a clean, intuitive GUI that simplifies the Git process, making it accessible for beginners and less technical users.
  • Seamless GitHub Integration
    The application is tightly integrated with GitHub, allowing users to easily clone repositories, create branches, and submit pull requests directly through the desktop interface.
  • Cross-Platform Support
    GitHub Desktop is available on both Windows and macOS, offering a consistent experience across these major operating systems.
  • Simplifies Workflow
    Features like drag-and-drop to add files, visual diff tools, and easy branching help streamline the workflow for users.
  • Collaborative Features
    The app provides useful collaborative tools such as reviewing changes, creating requests, and viewing history, enhancing team productivity.

Possible disadvantages of GitHub Desktop

  • Limited Advanced Features
    While GitHub Desktop is great for basic tasks, it lacks advanced features found in other Git clients like GitKraken or the command line.
  • Dependency on GitHub
    The app is deeply integrated with GitHub, which can be limiting for users who want to interact with repositories hosted on other platforms like GitLab or Bitbucket.
  • Performance Issues
    Some users report performance issues when dealing with large repositories or a significant number of files, which can hinder productivity.
  • Customization Limitations
    GitHub Desktop offers limited customization options compared to other Git clients or the command line, which may be a drawback for power users.
  • Offline Limitations
    Certain features of GitHub Desktop require an internet connection to interact with GitHub, limiting its usability in offline scenarios.

Octokit videos

No Octokit videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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GitHub Desktop videos

GitHub Desktop 2.0 -- Easy Mode Version Control

More videos:

  • Review - GitHub Desktop Quick Intro For Windows
  • Tutorial - Git and GitHub for Beginners: GitHub basics, and how to use GitHub Desktop

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Octokit and GitHub Desktop)
Git
3 3%
97% 97
Code Collaboration
4 4%
96% 96
Development
100 100%
0% 0
Git Tools
3 3%
97% 97

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Octokit and GitHub Desktop

Octokit Reviews

We have no reviews of Octokit yet.
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GitHub Desktop Reviews

Best Git GUI Clients of 2022: All Platforms Included
Creating branches and switching to existing ones isnโ€™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 for more detailed information.
Boost Development Productivity With These 14 Git Clients for Windows and Mac
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 both Windows and macOS desktops and laptops.
Source: geekflare.com
Best Git GUI Clients for Windows
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 version-controlling IT projects). This free Git GUI is open-source, transparent, and functional. When you consider the Git graphical interface for Windows, GitHub...
Source: blog.devart.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, GitHub Desktop seems to be a lot more popular than Octokit. While we know about 135 links to GitHub Desktop, we've tracked only 9 mentions of Octokit. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Octokit mentions (9)

  • Extending My Blog with Proofreading by Amazon Nova
    The work is basically carried out by three Lambda functions. The core Lambda function is the one performing the actual proofreading. The functions checking out the PR and creating a new commit are both using Octokit. To see how these work, check my previous posts. I will focus on the actual proofreader. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Building a community database with GitHub : A guide to Webhook and API integration with hono.js
    It is also best practice to use official and maintained third-party libraries for integration. These libraries can assist with payload handling as well as making authenticated requests to the third-party API. For the GitHub API we can leverage Octokit to make our requests and handle the payload. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • How I extend my blog with gamified learning
    To communicate with GitHub I use Octokit. Below are snippets from the CloudFormation Template and the code used to call GitHub API. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Server Side Rendering a Blog with Web Components
    During the workshop, we'll be using the Github API known as Octokit to generate client-side HTML from Markdown for each blog post. If you're using Stackblitz, an API token is provided for the workshop but will be revoked soon after. If you've cloned the repo or the token is revoked, login to GitHub and generate a new token on Github for use in the workshop. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Query GitHub Repo Topics Using GraphQL
    I started by using REST endpoints with the Octokit library and TypeScript bindings. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
View more

GitHub Desktop mentions (135)

  • How to Fix the Issue of Not Being Able to View Your GitHub Account on Other Devices
    Download the latest version from the GitHub Desktop website. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • 12 Steps to Organize and Maintain Your Python Codebase for Beginners
    Iโ€™m not going to dive into Git commands here โ€” you can find plenty of tutorials online. If youโ€™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 more visual, intuitive interface. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • File Governance and Versioning in Corticon BRMS
    Using terminal commands isnโ€™t necessary for basic adoption of Git with Corticon Studio files, though. There are various tools that will allow us to bypass the command line when defining rules, including the built-in Eclipse plugin for Git version control. If youโ€™ll be storing your assets on GitHub, though, an even easier solution is GitHub Desktop, a free desktop software that GitHub offers. It can be used in... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • An Introduction to Nix for Ruby Developers
    Nix currently is akin to git's "porcelain": powerful but esoteric. However, much like git evolved into exoteric, user-friendly tools such as git-flow, GitHub Desktop, and Tower to become user-friendly, many developers are building abstractions, wrappers, and utilities to simplify Nix usage. Let's briefly look at a few of these tools now. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Make your first contribution on github easily
    1.Download the github desktop. 2.Open the first contribution repository. 3.Open the github app and clone the repository. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Octokit and GitHub Desktop, you can also consider the following products

pre-commit - A slightly improved pre-commit hook for git

GitKraken - The intuitive, fast, and beautiful cross-platform Git client.

GitHub CLI - Official CLI tool for using GitHub from the command-line.

SourceTree - Mac and Windows client for Mercurial and Git.

OpenGrok - OpenGrok is a fast and usable source code search and cross reference engine.

SmartGit - SmartGit is a front-end for the distributed version control system Git and runs on Windows, Mac OS...