I spent 9 days building a free Git GUI because I was tired of paying $99/year

Posted by AIDevTools@reddit | programming | View on Reddit | 54 comments

After yet another "GitKraken wants $99/year" reminder, I decided to build the Git GUI I actually wanted to use. Nine days of focused work later, here's Graft.

The Problem:

GitKraken: $99/year and Electron bloat
SourceTree: Crashes constantly
GitHub Desktop: Too simple for serious work
Tower/Sublime Merge: Still paid
Most alternatives: Either too complex or missing key features

What I Built:

Command palette (Ctrl+K) for everything
Drag-and-drop interactive rebase
Native performance (Tauri + Rust, not Electron)
20+ keyboard shortcuts (Vim-inspired)
Beautiful dark/light themes
Completely free and open source

Tech Stack:

Frontend: React + TypeScript + Tailwind
Backend: Rust + Tauri 2.0
Git: libgit2 bindings

What Surprised Me:

Got my first contributor within 7 hours of releasing v1.0.2. They added testing infrastructure before I even asked for it. That told me I might be onto something.

Current Status:

v1.0.3 shipped (just fixed HTTPS auth)
All 10 planned phases complete
Production ready (I've been dogfooding it since day 2)

What's Missing:

No merge conflict resolution UI yet
No cherry-pick workflow
No submodule support
Probably a hundred things I haven't thought of

I'm not trying to compete with mature tools like GitKraken on every feature. Just trying to nail the 80% use case (branch, commit, merge, rebase) and make it fast, free, and keyboard-friendly.

GitHub: https://github.com/Dancode-188/graft

If you've ever been frustrated by slow, expensive Git GUIs, I'd love your feedback.

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nrith@reddit

I’ve used SourceTree for many years. It’s much easier to do certain tasks, like partial commits, than with command-line tools.

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Halkcyon@reddit

It’s much easier to do certain tasks, like partial commits

Or you could use jujitsu (JJ) which makes a load of git things way easier and ergonomic.

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Free_Math_Tutoring@reddit

Or I could use a GUI, which makes a load of git things way easier and ergonomic.

(and doesn't make me push a tool of marginal convenience on a team of experts who all have interesting problems to solve and no trouble using git)

I appreciate the goal of pushing the envelope of tooling, but JJ is currently not a meaningful improvement for the vast majority of teams.

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Halkcyon@reddit

But it solves a different problem.

imo, it solves the same problem. Painting a new frontend/UI on top of git's data structures.

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sampullman@reddit

Do you have an example of a task that's much easier? I guess I've used the git CLI for so long that most things feel natural, I'm having a hard time thinking of something I'd rather have a GUI for.

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nrith@reddit

Many things:

I almost never add all my changes at once for committing. I browse through the changes and add specific lines or chunks, then commit those. The leftover changes can be stashed, reverted, or kept around for the next commit. (I also write pretty detailed commit messages, including ticket numbers, so it’s easier for me to figure out what I’m doing.)
Rebasing is as simple as scrolling to the base commit, ctrl-clicking, and selecting “Rebase.” I almost never have to copy and paste commit hashes.
I can push multiple branches at once, and can easily see which local branches track remote ones.
It’s far easier for me to view the commit history and tree in a scrollable table.

There are some things that I just can’t do easily, or at all, in Sourcetree, especially squash-and-merge and bisecting. It’s als not great at searching though commit messages, so I still do that on the command line.

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jrmehle@reddit

I have mainly switched to Github Desktop when I want a GUI, but SourceTree still has a better stash browser so I keep it around. I hate the way Github Desktop handles stashes.

gimmeslack12@reddit

Are these GUIs used pretty commonly? I’ve never tried them before.

I've tried a bunch of them over the years, and I can highly recommend Sublime Merge.

I am perfectly comfortable in a command line, but this gives much greater visual clarity and intuition, and I am addicted to reading all the changes again before fully committing them. I'll use git add -p when I have to, but the GUI is just nicer (there are many other benefits to it).

jc-from-sin@reddit

Yes, it's super quick to do partial commits and rebase edits to just name a few.

kernelangus420@reddit

Github Desktop may be simple but it has 99% of what I need.

AnAwkwardSemicolon@reddit

I've been a Tower user since its initial release. It's by far my favorite client- it handles worktrees and makes my rebasing workflows far easier. Prefer the CLI for most things, but Tower has a solid place in my toolbox.

extra_rice@reddit

Really, the only time I use a Git GUI is to help visualise the history, for which gitk is pretty good at. I only use SourceTree at work because that's the only one available.

TechnoCat@reddit

While I adore a good CLI, a lot of people find it cumbersome to a GUI. To each their own I suppose.

danielv123@reddit

Some notes so far:

- First 1000 commits loaded quickly

- Why did it only load 1000 commits? How do I see the rest?

- Entire program locks up while fetching changes. Sorry, hour long full program freezes aren't better than what other options are able to provide.

- No way to get rid of theme selector obscuring UI and error messages

- Why is there no pull ff only option?

- Can't figure out how to switch branch. Clicking the branches in the branch sidebar doesn't do anything

- Can't expand the tree to see my branch

- Tree has crazy vertical spacing - 2 cm vertically between each commit???

- 5cm wide window on the right hand side to see what has changed in each commit, meanwhile the space for showing the commit message (description is also relegated to the tiny window) is huuuge

Overall, what does this do that the vscode default UI doesn't already do better? Install size I guess?

BeautifulTennis3524@reddit

99 dollar per year for 9 days of work. Unsure if you can sell this or this is actually your employers property but i earn over 99 an hour. So I guess this may be cool but the tiring to pay seems not a smart choice

jailbreak@reddit

I feel like your list of alternatives is missing Fork. It's pay once - or trial as long as you like (like Sublime Text). Quite similar to SourceTree except faster and doesn't crash

Magnetoreception@reddit

Big vote for Fork

touchwiz@reddit

If you use AI/vibecoding always disclose it. If not you will get downvoted into the ground by default

andreal@reddit

https://fork.dev

mrkent27@reddit

+1 for Fork. Hands down best Git GUI I've used for Windows/Mac. Not sure why you're getting downvoted.

YeshilPasha@reddit

Probably because it is not free. Which misses the point of OP.

OP specifically mentions subscription models in the README. All of the products mentioned in the original post are subscription models as well. Fork is a one off purchase and gives you access to all platforms.

butidigest@reddit

Except linux

Sorry I meant all supported platforms of Fork. So yes, no Linux. For that I recommend Sourcegit https://github.com/sourcegit-scm/sourcegit

RScrewed@reddit

Because it's not free. The whole point of this is to be free.

pfp-disciple@reddit

That looks nice. There are differences:

Fork seems to only be for Windows or Mac
Fork is commercial, although it's free evaluation (presumably unlimited) and pretty cheap (one time ~$60).

ZioTron@reddit

that's not free or opensource

Agent7619@reddit

Does nobody use TortoiseGit? (I do...ever since TortoiseSVN and TortoiseHg)

savornicesei@reddit

Me, for commits and history. I badly miss it when I'm on linux

KorwinD@reddit

Me! It's a standard tool in my department!

edave64@reddit

How exactly is it solving "🐌 Too slow (Electron bloat)" as a Tauri app? That's still a full browser application. I would understand "Too large", since Tauri doesn't ship the chromium, but I don't think it should be significantly faster by any metric by avoiding electron.

NovelPuzzleheaded311@reddit

*insert spongebob chicken meme here* but electron bad!

But yeah, the whole comparison is pretty funny.

ionburger@reddit

lol il take something written by real humans not ai slop

poggers11@reddit

Good project but there's several great free guis: Git extensions being the top one Tortoise git also

pinkyellowneon@reddit

what do you need a git client for bro ur vibe coding just ask Claude

tonyp7@reddit

SourceTree exists?

santya95@reddit

Lol why not git Extensions?

mike3run@reddit

We have lazygit at home

And GitUi

https://github.com/gitui-org/gitui