Git

Not to be confused with GitHub, GitLab, or Gitea.

Git
Original author(s)Linus Torvalds[1]
Developer(s)Junio Hamano and others[2]
Initial release7 April 2005 (2005-04-07)
Stable release
2.51.0[3]  / 18 August 2025
Repository
Written inPrimarily in C, with GUI and programming scripts written in Shell script, Perl, Tcl and Python[4][5]
Operating systemPOSIX (Linux, macOS, Solaris, AIX), Windows
Available inEnglish
TypeVersion control
LicenseGPL-2.0-only[i][7]
Websitegit-scm.com 

Git (/ɡɪt/ ⓘ[8]) is a distributed version control software system[9] that is capable of managing versions of source code or data. It is often used to control source code by programmers who are developing software collaboratively.

Design goals of Git include speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows—thousands of parallel branches running on different computers.[10][11][12]

As with most other distributed version control systems, and unlike most client–server systems, Git maintains a local copy of the entire repository, also known as "repo", with history and version-tracking abilities, independent of network access or a central server. A repository is stored on each computer in a standard directory with additional, hidden files to provide version control capabilities.[13] Git provides features to synchronize changes between repositories that share history; for asynchronous collaboration, this extends to repositories on remote machines. Although all repositories (with the same history) are peers, developers often use a central server to host a repository to hold an integrated copy.

Git is free and open-source software shared under the GPL-2.0-only license.

Git was originally created by Linus Torvalds for version control in the development of the Linux kernel.[14] The trademark "Git" is registered by the Software Freedom Conservancy.

Today, Git is the de facto standard version control system. It is the most popular distributed version control system,[15][16] with nearly 95% of developers reporting it as their primary version control system as of 2022.[17] It is the most widely used source-code management tool among professional developers. There are offerings of Git repository services, including GitHub, SourceForge, Bitbucket and GitLab.[18][19][20][21][22]

  1. ^ "Initial revision of "git", the information manager from hell". GitHub. 8 April 2005. Archived from the original on 16 November 2015. Retrieved 20 December 2015.
  2. ^ "Commit Graph". GitHub. 8 June 2016. Archived from the original on 20 January 2016. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  3. ^ Junio C Hamano (18 August 2025). https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqikikk1hr.fsf@gitster.g/T/#u. Retrieved 19 August 2025. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. ^ "Git website". Archived from the original on 9 June 2022. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
  5. ^ "Git Source Code Mirror". GitHub. Archived from the original on 3 June 2022. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
  6. ^ "Git's LGPL license at github.com". GitHub. 20 May 2011. Archived from the original on 11 April 2016. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
  7. ^ "Git's GPL license at github.com". GitHub. 18 January 2010. Archived from the original on 11 April 2016. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
  8. ^ Tech Talk: Linus Torvalds on git. 14 May 2007. Event occurs at 00:01:30. Archived from the original on 20 December 2015. Retrieved 20 July 2014 – via YouTube.
  9. ^ Chacon & Straub 2014, pp. 29–31.
  10. ^ Torvalds, Linus (7 April 2005). "Re: Kernel SCM saga..." linux-kernel (Mailing list). Archived from the original on 1 July 2019. Retrieved 3 February 2017. "So I'm writing some scripts to try to track things a whole lot faster."
  11. ^ Torvalds, Linus (10 June 2007). "Re: fatal: serious inflate inconsistency". git (Mailing list). Archived from the original on 28 December 2022. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  12. ^ Linus Torvalds (3 May 2007). Google tech talk: Linus Torvalds on git. Event occurs at 02:30. Archived from the original on 28 May 2007. Retrieved 16 May 2007.
  13. ^ Chacon, Scott (24 December 2014). Pro Git (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Apress. pp. 29–30. ISBN 978-1-4842-0077-3. Archived from the original on 25 December 2015.
  14. ^ "A Short History of Git". Pro Git (2nd ed.). Apress. 2014. Archived from the original on 25 December 2015. Retrieved 26 December 2015.
  15. ^ Shirey, Russell G. (1 March 2015). "Git as an Encrypted Distributed Version Control System" (PDF). Defense Technical Information Center. p. 38. Retrieved 13 July 2025.
  16. ^ Knüpfer, Andreas; Callow, Timothy J. (2025). "Data Version Management and Machine-Actionable Reproducibility for HPC based on git and DataLad". arXiv:2505.06558 [cs.DC].
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ Krill, Paul (28 September 2016). "Enterprise repo wars: GitHub vs. GitLab vs. Bitbucket". InfoWorld. Archived from the original on 2 February 2020. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
  19. ^ Cite error: The named reference Alexa github.com was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  20. ^ Cite error: The named reference Alexa sourceforge.net was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  21. ^ Cite error: The named reference Alexa bitbucket.org was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  22. ^ Cite error: The named reference Alexa gitlab.com was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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