I used to like the core of the _Sourcetree_ application, and it has even been my main Git UI for a while. However, I can no longer recommend it. Over the years, Atlassian tied it increasingly tightly to their Bitbucket ecosystem. This went far enough that for a while now, it's not even possible to complete installation anymore without registering for a BItbucket account and going through an online activation process. A requirement like this instantly disqualifies any application for me – especially if it's a free one. Atlassian claims it wasn't a marketing move, but motivated by licensing and legal considerations. To the end-user, it doesn't make a difference. There are enough good, free (even if proprietary) alternatives to Sourcetree that _don't_ include an artificial dependency on the availability of a remote service, and _don't_ force complete vendor lock-in. You're on the right site to find those alternatives. Stay away from Sourcetree, _especially_ because it is, in principle, a well-made tool. If you decide to jump through all the superfluous hoops to get it to run at all, and end up liking it, you're just setting yourself up for future disappointment. You will get used to working with a tool that can be taken away from you again at a moment's notice.
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I have recently returned to Sourcetree after a couple of years using alternatives to Git. I've spent a little time trying other tools and I surprised myself by coming back to it as my choice of GUI.
What made me decide to keep with it rather than to go with GitKraken was a small but significant matter. The graphical representation of the branches in Sourcetree is uncluttered with tags and the like fully expanded. In comparison, GitKraken's display felt crabbed and required mouse clicks or a hover to reveal what I consider to be basic information.
What made me decide on this rather than some of the leading free alternatives is the speed of update of the GUI when files change underneath it and the fact that the major features I wanted (such as squashing commits) are readily available and easier to use. It also makes use of my preferred text editor (CRiSP) and merge tool (Beyond Compare) and I can highlight a file and instantly open it in Windows Explorer or copy its path to the clipboard. You don't know quite how helpful are little things like that until you use a package that doesn't have them.
What made me wary of returning is that it has had a chequered history. Several times updates were issued that slowed it to a crawl (other reviews here suggest that this was around 2017) and were not fixed in an acceptable timeframe. Around the same time basic features were lost in a transition to a new engine with users having to wait for several updates to regain anything near the original functionality. One version had serious issues with switching between branches and, after suffering two commits being corrupted during switching, I was forced to get into the habit of backing up my work-area before doing so. Based on that experience it's likely that Atlassian's development and Quality Assurance teams were "experiencing issues" at the time, one hopes that this has now been remedied.
It's a very complete solution for visual git handling and managing multiple repositories, locally or distant.
I have been using this tool more than 3 years, but now it has become unbearably to use Source Tree: I see a lot of bugs, sometimes I cannot simply click on a file with changes to see them, often it work very slowly, sometimes instead of one click there is double and many many other small problems which make me crazy!!! I'm here to replace Source Tree with something else.
For windows, it install to AppData, cannot change to "Program Files"
I used to like the core of the Sourcetree application, and it has even been my main Git UI for a while. However, I can no longer recommend it. Over the years, Atlassian tied it increasingly tightly to their Bitbucket ecosystem. This went far enough that for a while now, it's not even possible to complete installation anymore without registering for a BItbucket account and going through an online activation process.
A requirement like this instantly disqualifies any application for me – especially if it's a free one. Atlassian claims it wasn't a marketing move, but motivated by licensing and legal considerations. To the end-user, it doesn't make a difference. There are enough good, free (even if proprietary) alternatives to Sourcetree that don't include an artificial dependency on the availability of a remote service, and don't force complete vendor lock-in. You're on the right site to find those alternatives.
Stay away from Sourcetree, especially because it is, in principle, a well-made tool. If you decide to jump through all the superfluous hoops to get it to run at all, and end up liking it, you're just setting yourself up for future disappointment. You will get used to working with a tool that can be taken away from you again at a moment's notice.
Unfortunately SourceTree doesn't work with GitHub anymore since they've gone to Subversion.
Bummer.
Switched to Tower Git App after they colored my system icon into rainbow colors without providing an option to disable this "feature". Very happy with Tower and can recommend it to all the Sourcetree users.