Gitbox vs Tower

I’ve been using Gitbox for about a year now and I am mostly happy with it. Not happy enough that I didn’t wonder if Tower might be a better option.

I’ve been using the demo for a while now and I haven not yet decided that I need to switch.

Tower is $65 to Gitbox’s $15.

As someone who learned command line Git before starting to use either app, I like the feeling that Gitbox feels ‘close to the metal’. It feels like a thin abstraction of command line git. Tower on the other hand feels like an immersive environment.

Gitbox feels faster to me than Tower.

I like that Gitbox has some very helpful keyboard shortcuts e.g. the “s” key to stage and upstage items, or command-shift-return to stage and upstage all or command return to commit, and the simple P for push pull.

I also like the fact that Gitbox makes navigating to various repos faster, as they are always on view in the left column.

Tower does seem to have more features, but I don’t mind switching to the command line if I need to use them.

One thing that I do like is the way Tower manages repositories and integrates with my accounts on GitHub, Bitbucket, etc.

Tower is better looking at a glance, but maybe too good-looking, it’s tabbed layout and complex UI leads to a sense that there’s more overhead than I really need, Gitbox is maybe slightly too basic looking to be considered pretty, but at the same time, that basic quality means that it stays out of the stay.

I wouldn’t mind having a copy of both apps. But I suspect that when my demo runs out I’ll probably let it go, and if I do decide to purchase Tower, I’m doubting that it will become my primary Git GUI.