GitHub Desktop is a native Git client for Mac OS X and Windows with a graphical user interface.

Comments about GitHub Desktop as an Alternative to Fork

- GitHub Desktop is Free and Open Source
Fork is described as 'A fast and friendly git client for Mac and Windows' and is a popular Version Control system in the development category. There are more than 50 alternatives to Fork for a variety of platforms, including Mac, Windows, Linux, Android and Flathub apps. The best Fork alternative is GitHub Desktop, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like Fork are SmartGit, Sourcetree, GitKraken and Gittyup.
GitHub Desktop is a native Git client for Mac OS X and Windows with a graphical user interface.


SmartGit is a front-end for the distributed version control system Git and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. SmartGit is intended for developers who prefer a graphical user interface over a command line client, to be even more productive with Git.




SmartGit is more powerful in terms of raw features, but Fork is much more enjoyable to use due to clean, intuitive UI, while still maintaining a very large feature-set compared to other git clients. Fork enables me to use git features I wouldn't have thought about using by surfacing them in the UI and making them super simple to use.


A powerful Mac and Windows client for Mercurial and Git distributed version control systems.




Before using Fork I used Sourcetree. It was a great sidekick when integrated version control support of IDEs were insufficient. However it is not that snappy and offers less features. The diff views are not as good as they could be.


Millions of developers and teams around the world choose GitKraken Client to make Git more visual and accessible with an intuitive UI, the flexibility to switch between a GUI or a terminal, and a seamless experience across operating systems.


The technical foundation of the Electron framework made this app sluggish while not even offering many features at the time I was trying it out. The biggest thing about it appeared to be the budget for advertising and creating a hype.





Modern graphical Git client featuring advanced tooling, support for GitHub, GitLab, Codeberg, detailed project popout views, dynamic workflow automation, and extensive theme customization for enhanced adaptability and user-driven workflow management.


TortoiseGit is a Windows Shell Interface to Git and based on TortoiseSVN. It's open source and can fully be build with freely available software.









Git Extensions is a standalone UI tool for managing git repositories. It also integrates with Windows Explorer and Microsoft Visual Studio (2010/2012/2013/2015/2017). Linux is supported by 2.51 version with some issues.




Native desktop Git client for macOS and Windows offering GUI access to full Git functionality including Pull Requests, Interactive Rebase, Image Diffing, Undo, Quick Actions, and seamless integration with leading code hosting services and external diff tools.








Has more advanced options than GitHub Desktop, but for day to day casual use the UI is more complicated. I would say have both installed if you dont want to mess with Git CLI and you should be fine.