GitKraken
Ranked 7 of 18 Git clients by recommenders
A visual Git client that people recommend for making Git operations quick and easy, and for reliability over many years. Critics most often say it is slow and cluttered, and that it works poorly under WSL.
A visual Git client that people recommend for making Git operations quick and easy, and for reliability over many years. Critics most often say it is slow and cluttered, and that it works poorly under WSL.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 64%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Quick, easy Git operations
“makes this incredibly easy, takes seconds”
Comment from 8 Apr 2026 in “The Git Commands I Run Before Reading Any Code” “it's great for both newbies and pros.”
Comment from 11 Nov 2025 in “The lazy Git UI you didn't know you need” Reliable over many years
“GitKraken has been good in my experience with it for many years”
Comment from 24 Oct 2026 in “Roku developer repositories moved from GitHub to GitLab” “I’ve found the tool to be reliable.”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: Which merge tool do you use?”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Slow, cluttered, resource-hungry UI
“has a really nice ticketing system integration but also the older versions I've tried had vibe slopped UI”
Comment from 24 Oct 2026 in “ThinkRail from JetBrains” “slow, clunky, and resource hungry”
Comment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Steam Client is now faster than Epic's new vibe coded launcher” “I found it too much cluttering”
Comment from 18 Aug 2026 in “Splitting a Git Commit” Poor WSL support
“but it is barely usable as the WSL-g does not really work well”
Comment from 23 Dec 2025 in “Claude Code gets native LSP support” “Graphical interface won't work well inside WSL”
Comment from 23 Dec 2025 in “Claude Code gets native LSP support”
Other Git clients people recommend
The four most recommended other Git clients, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Magit | 120 | 20 | 86% | 12 | 10 yrs6 owners | Approved |
| Sublime Merge | 22 | 1 | 96% | 10 | — | Approved |
| GitButler | 21 | 19 | 53% | 6 | — | — |
| Fork git client | 17 | 2 | 89% | 7 | — | Approved |
| GitKrakenThis page | 9 | 5 | 64% | 8 | — | — |
What people said
15 of the 17 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“GitKraken has been good in my experience with it for many years”
“has a really nice ticketing system integration but also the older versions I've tried had vibe slopped UI”
“slow, clunky, and resource hungry”
“I think gitkraken is the only tool I use that presents it that way currently.”
“I found it too much cluttering”
“GitKraken is really good if you want to pay for it”
“makes this incredibly easy, takes seconds”
“even if I prefer to use Sourcetree or GitKraken”
“but it is barely usable as the WSL-g does not really work well”
“Graphical interface won't work well inside WSL”
“previously I paid for GitKraken but reevaluating my usage found that SourceTree is also decent enough”
“I’ve found the tool to be reliable.”
“they do make it harder and harder to like every update”
“it's great for both newbies and pros.”
“I just don't feel in control of what I'm trying to achieve with Git”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.