tig
Hacker ApprovedRanked 3 of 3 terminal Git clients by recommenders
A lightweight, long-maintained terminal interface for browsing git history, viewing diffs and staging hunks; more barebones than Magit.
14 people recommended tig in Hacker News comments, 1 had mixed feelings and none criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026.
Summary written by Claude from the comments below.
15 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 14
- mixed feelings
- 1
- warn against or regret it
- 0
The record
Recommended in 9 of 12 months
In 12 different threads.
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
Why it carries the badge
- 14 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 of 12 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
- Recommended in 12 threadsNeeds 5 or more, met.
- The biggest thread supplies 21% of its recommendersNeeds half or less, met.
The same rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. Mixed feelings count toward neither side. How the badge works
What people say about it
Reasons grouped from a sample of 15 of the 19 opinions about it, picked in proportion to how many people recommend it, have mixed feelings and criticize it. Each mark is one comment in the sample. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Quick selective staging of hunks
“one of my favorite tools to quickly commit stuff without too many key presses”
Comment from 26 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Deff – side-by-side Git diff review in your terminal” “it’s been my tool of choice for staging hunks for more than 15 years now”
Comment from 10 Nov 2025 in “The lazy Git UI you didn't know you need” “how tig TUI makes this, and other git actions, very simple”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “Using Git add -p for fun (and profit)” - Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “Staging patches with Git add -p”
Clean diff and log views
“I’ve used tig, a git TUI that renders very nice views of the diffs, for many years”
Comment from 6 Sep 2026 in “.gitignore Everything by Default” “mostly for easier git log viewing for me as I use straight git most of the time”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “Ask HN: What dev tools do you rely on that nobody talks about?” “less cluttered UI and slightly faster interface”
Comment from 10 Nov 2025 in “The lazy Git UI you didn't know you need” - Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “Ask HN: Which CLI tools do you use daily?”
Simple, reliable, long-maintained tool
“Tig is a nice and long-maintained git tui you might enjoy”
Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “I found a useful Git one liner buried in leaked CIA developer docs” “it's simple and reliable and compiles everywhere I need”
Comment from 11 Nov 2025 in “The lazy Git UI you didn't know you need”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Barebones compared with magit or lazygit
“tig is more barebones, but I could quickly configure it to be able to do most of the magit tricks I need.”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “Defeating Git Rigour Fatigue with Jujutsu” “I could probably cobble something close with tig or lazygit if I switched from emacs.”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “What is jj and why should I care?”
Other terminal Git clients people recommend
The two most recommended other terminal 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.
See all 3 terminal Git clients, rankedWhat people said
15 of the 19 opinions about it, picked in proportion to the three counts, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I’ve used tig, a git TUI that renders very nice views of the diffs, for many years”
“for my selective staging needs”
“tig is more barebones, but I could quickly configure it to be able to do most of the magit tricks I need.”
“you need to setup something like magit, tig, and maybe lazy git”
“I could probably cobble something close with tig or lazygit if I switched from emacs.”
“best way to browse git history in terminal”
“mostly for easier git log viewing for me as I use straight git most of the time”
“Lazygit and tig cover the few use-cases which Fork does not cover.”
“one of my favorite tools to quickly commit stuff without too many key presses”
“Tig is a nice and long-maintained git tui you might enjoy”
“I've used tig just for this for as long as I can remember”
“how tig TUI makes this, and other git actions, very simple”
“it's simple and reliable and compiles everywhere I need”
“it’s been my tool of choice for staging hunks for more than 15 years now”
“less cluttered UI and slightly faster interface”
Counts come from 1,791,911 Hacker News comments labeled by Claude, November 2025 to October 2026, with data through October 31, 2026. Counts updated 2 Nov 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.