# Gitdot 38 Hacker News commenters recommended Gitdot and 52 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months. **Verdict:** People like its clean, minimal, terminal-inspired web UI and its speed, and see it as a fresh open-source take on git hosting; critics say it is unfinished and not clearly better than GitHub. ## Why people recommend it - Clean minimal design (6 comments): "The minimal look feels very refreshing, and yet it's not disorienting like many minimal web git UIs are in my experience" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48452032)) "I love the design. Clean and refreshing - you start at the left and every sub element goes to the right." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48452889)) "I personally prefer the GitDot UI over the bloated corporate style UIs that all feel the same" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48452633)) - Refreshing terminal-inspired UI (3 comments): "I like the terminal aesthetics but please, for accessibility's sake, make input boxes look more like input boxes and buttons look like buttons." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48452202)) "The CLI-inspired UI is the most interesting part here." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48458767)) "Big fan of the design! Different but easy to get a hand of." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48453303)) - Open source and fresh (3 comments): "having viable alternative platforms and seeing active experimentation with new projects and features" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48458840)) "This is really interesting. Especially as its open source and I really liked the UI design of it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48448167)) "there's a real opportunity to create something fresh" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48451884)) - Fast and pleasant to use (2 comments): "I appreciate how incredibly fast it is." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48458196)) "It is a nice-feeling site." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48454077)) ## What people warn about - Confusing or unclear UI (4 comments): "please just make a normal UI, I have no idea what I am looking at" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48452355)) "The UI is polarising, for sure." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48458031)) "these aren’t highlights - if anything they are quite off putting." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48453116)) - Lacks mobile support (3 comments): "Feels weird to ship a website without mobile support in this day. The desktop version looks nice though" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48452832)) "At least it would be reasonable to show a message like "Sorry, no mobile support yet"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48453742)) "Didn't work for me even when I chose to see the desktop site in my mobile browser" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48453277)) - Unclear value over GitHub (3 comments): "I think the value proposition should be much higher than simply "GitHub in Rust"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48462462)) "I don't see an advantage doing it in Rust besides the community and potential of promotion to that community." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48456190)) "The fact that is built in Rust isn't a killer feature nor something someone needs." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48475894)) - Navigation and keyboard issues (2 comments): "the only way back to the home page after navigating to a repo is the back button" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48452258)) "For example the "h" keymap for going home does not work." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48453392)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [cgit](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cgit.md): 18 recommend - [gitweb](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gitweb.md): 6 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Gitdot", https://hackerapproved.com/p/gitdot/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).