Git

Git is a free and open-source distributed version control system. It records every change to a project's files as a series of commits, so a team can see who changed what and why, return to any earlier state, and work on several lines of development at once. It was designed to handle anything from a small script to very large projects such as the Linux kernel with speed and efficiency.

Git was created in 2005 by the Linux kernel community, led by Linus Torvalds. The kernel had been using the proprietary BitKeeper system, and when its free-of-charge status was withdrawn the developers built their own tool around a few goals: speed, a simple design, strong support for thousands of parallel branches, a fully distributed model and efficiency on large projects. It is released under the GNU General Public License version 2, and the project is a member of the Software Freedom Conservancy.

Key features

• Distributed repositories. Every clone holds the full history, so committing, branching, viewing logs and comparing versions work offline.
• Branching and merging. Branches are cheap to create, which makes feature branches and pull-request workflows practical.
• Staging area. Changes are added to a staging area before they are committed, so a commit can include exactly the changes intended.
• Remotes. Push, fetch and pull exchange commits with other repositories, including hosted services.
• Efficient storage. The project notes that the full Linux history, about 1.4 million commits, takes only about 5.5 GB.
• Tooling ecosystem. Git works from the command line, and the official site lists graphical clients; editors and hosting platforms build on it.

Who it is for

Git is for anyone who writes code or keeps text-based files under version control: individual developers, students learning to program, open-source projects and companies of every size. Hosting services such as GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket are built around Git repositories, so learning Git is usually the first step to using any of them.

Pricing at a glance

• Git itself: free and open source, with no paid edition.
• Hosting: optional; repositories can live on your own server or with a hosting service, each with its own pricing.

The latest source release at the time of writing is Git 2.56.0, released on 28 September 2026. Checked on 10 October 2026.

Things to consider

• Git has a steep learning curve: concepts such as the staging area, rebasing and detached HEAD confuse many newcomers.
• Large binary files bloat repositories; extensions such as Git LFS are the usual answer.
• Commands such as reset --hard and force pushes can discard work, so learn them before using them on shared branches.
• Git tracks history but does not provide code review, issue tracking or CI on its own; those come from hosting platforms.

Getting started

1. Install Git for Windows, macOS or Linux from the official install page.
2. Set your name and email with git config so commits are attributed correctly.
3. Run git init in a project folder, or git clone an existing repository.
4. Use git add and git commit to record changes, and git log to review history.
5. Work through the free Pro Git book to learn branching, merging and remotes.