# Git 814 Hacker News commenters recommended Git and 503 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 13 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 15 years (42 owners). **Verdict:** The standard version control tool: fast, local-first and built on a clear, reliable model with easy undo, though its CLI is arcane and it struggles with large binary files and huge monorepos. ## Why people recommend it - Fast, even on massive repos (4 comments): "For everything I've ever done, git was practically instant (except network IO of course). It's one of the fastest and most reliable tools I know." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47759298)) "Having the repo local is amazing, being able to make a new branch in git even on a massive repo is lightening fast compared to svn." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49954660)) "Git sucks on so many points that there ain't be enough walls in the world to write our lamentations about it. But it's damn fast." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48916391)) - Clear, simple underlying model (4 comments): "the surface of git (the CLI) is an abomination in many ways but the the mechanics of the tool are so ingrained and the model is so clear and simple" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48127654)) "Git has a very good conceptual model, and then provides operations (aptly named when you know about the model) to manipulate it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47866115)) "Git may have an arcane interface, but if you learn it, you can be sure what exactly will happen when you run a Git command." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47458464)) - Local, decentralized workflow (4 comments): "local branches are super useful, and it seems like all that focus on git being a distributed vcs allows (and requires) a dev to work more locally first" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48589498)) "The whole point of git is to be decentralized so there is no reason for you to not have your current version available even when a remote is offline." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47531359)) "You do know you can run git on your own machine, on pretty much any Linux/Unix based server, run it entirely peer-to-peer if you wish" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49350752)) - Cheap branches and safe undo (5 comments): "Lightweight branch model of git mapped so much better to the way that actual development processes of medium to large projects really work(ed)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47728030)) "Having the repo local is amazing, being able to make a new branch in git even on a massive repo is lightening fast compared to svn." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49954660)) "With “git reflog” and “git reset” or “git checkout” one can undo any series of ill conceived squash/rebase/amend operations." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48175051)) ## What people warn about - Arcane, confusing command-line interface (5 comments): "the surface of git (the CLI) is an abomination in many ways but the the mechanics of the tool are so ingrained and the model is so clear and simple" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48127654)) "Git is a beautiful piece of software but it does expose complexity in a very by programmers for programmers kind of way." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47031677)) "The whole reason for bringing a UI layer into all of this in the first place is freeing up my brain from having to deal with git's bullshit." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45881296)) - Poor with large binary files (2 comments): "Git does great with text files, but game development contains a lot of binary assets (textures, videos, 3d models) and correspondingly huge repos." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48571236)) "From large files to sub modules to hook permissions and file permissions... The list goes on and on about what where git falls short." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48632306)) - Painful merge and rebase conflicts (4 comments): "conflicts interrupt the merge/rebase. And if you end up in a situation with multiple rebases/merges/both, it's easy to get a "bad" state" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47484151)) "Can you avoid a conflict if 2 people change the names of 2 different variables on one line as these are semantically unrelated changes?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46263269)) "git-merge doesn't have a merge strategy of "null": don't try to resolve any merge conflicts, because I've already taken care of them" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46788241)) - Struggles with large monorepos (2 comments): "Outside of large monorepo things, which are not the majority of modern commercial software projects, the main complaint I hear is the learning curve." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48632233)) "Git (and associated service providers) have a lot of work to do to scale out to large organizations working in a single code base." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47483782)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Jujutsu (jj)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jujutsu.md): 335 recommend - [Mercurial](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mercurial.md): 121 recommend - [jj (Jujutsu)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jj.md): 115 recommend - [Fossil](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fossil.md): 106 recommend - [Subversion](https://hackerapproved.com/p/subversion.md): 54 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Git", https://hackerapproved.com/p/git/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).