Difference Between Git And GitHub

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What is Git?

Git is an open-source version control system that is used to efficiently manage projects ranging in size from small to huge. During software development, this software keeps track of changes in a set of files and can help coordinate work between programmers working on source code together.

Linus Torvalds founded it in the year 2005 with the goal of producing Linux kernels. It was initially developed with the help of other Kernel engineers. Since 2005, Junio Hamano has been the core maintainer.

Git’s major goals are speed and data integrity. It also allows non-linear and distributed workflows. As a result, it has been demonstrated to be a high-quality version control system.

What you need to know about Git

  • Git is an open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.
  • Git manages the different versions of our project by maintaining a series of snapshots of the project. Any project managed using Git is referred to as Git Repository.
  • The benefit of using Git is that you can easily compare the current version of a project with previous versions and rectify errors.
  • Git provides excellent branching support. A branch is just a pointer to a commit. They are used to create an independent working environment for developers where they can experiment with different things without worrying about affecting the project.
  • There are other version control systems out there like Mercurial, SVN, ClearCase but Git is probably the most popular and the most widely used one.

What is GitHub?

GitHub, to be precise, is a website and cloud-based service that can assist developers in managing and storing their code. Changes in a person’s code can be managed and tracked. It’s a service for hosting Git repositories in the cloud.

It is just for-profit businesses, unlike Git. It offers an easy-to-use UI. People also use it to manage a variety of other tasks. Chris Wanstrath, P.J. Hyett, Tom Preston-Werner, and Scott Chacon created the GitHub services. The company was founded in 2007 in San Francisco and began operations in February 2008.

What you need to know about GitHub

  • GitHub is a cloud based Git repository hosting service that is owned by the tech giant Microsoft.  Here you can manage and share code with other and manage development teams as collaborators.
  • Github provides all the features of Git and it is also more user-friendly and intuitive to use.
  • GitHub is very useful for collaborative purposes. A person can share his code with other developers by uploading the Git Repositoy to GitHub. We can also authorize other developers to make changes to our remote repository.
  • There are other Git hosting services like Bitbucket or GitLab, but GitHub is the most popular and the most widely used one.

Difference Between Git And GitHub In Tabular

BASIS OF COMPARISON   Git GitHub
Description Git is an open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.   GitHub is a cloud based Git repository hosting service that is owned by the tech giant Microsoft.  
Access Git is installed on our local machine and we don’t need internet access to use Git. GitHub is completely cloud-based and an internet connection is needed to use GitHub.
Functionalities It provides functionalities like Version Control System Source Code Management. It provides functionalities of Git like VCS, Source Code Management as well as adding few of its own features.
Maintenance Git is maintained by the Linux Foundation.   GitHub is maintained by Microsoft.
Importance   Git is a software and is used as a command-line tool. GitHub is a service and provides a Graphical Interface to its users.
Use Git is completely free to use. GitHub provides free as well as paid plans.
Focus Git is focused on version control and code sharing.   GitHub is focused on centralized source code hosting.
Launch Git was first released in 2005.   GitHub was launched in 2008.
Nature Git is a version control system to manage source code history.   GitHub is a hosting service for Git repositories.
User Management No user management features.   There is Built-in user-management feature

Conclusion

GitHub is a Git repository hosting service, but it adds many of its own features. While Git is a command line tool, GitHub provides a Web-based graphical interface. It also provides access control and several collaboration features, such as a wikis and basic task management tools for every project.