Git vs GitHub: What are the Major Differences?

Introduction

Most often Git is mistaken for GitHub by developers and server designers and vice-versa, the two terms are distinct and have an extensively broad meaning. Although the purpose of both Git vs GitHub is collaboration, yet there is a wide chain of differences between the two.

First, let’s understand the meaning of Git vs GitHub and their implications individually, then we shall discuss their difference on various bases to get more clarity on Java Git and GitHub.

What is Git?

Git is an essential part of programming, especially if you are working as a team, and is one of the most widespread collaborative tools. Every developer needs a version control system for getting his work aligned in chronological order. 

It is a very essential tool for Source Code Management, Git enables numerous people to work concurrently and track the individual contribution made by them. The UI is so user-friendly and elementary that people other than programmers also use it for tracking down their files.

What is GitHub?

GitHub is a Microsoft-developed programme that provides a platform for collaborative work or group projects. Generally in the software development community around five to ten people work on the same project.

An application that has got 10 screens, has around thirty to fifty files of codes, which is impossible to share through e-mail or other sharing resources.

With the help of GitHub, developers can easily upload their code to their GitHub account and share the link with their peers, so that the peers may review their code or append some modules to their code.

GitHub comes with one-lined Git commands to move (push) your code from a local repository to a remote repository or to grab (pull) someone’s collective code from a remote repository. Git has a “remote” command to deal with remote repositories.

All the operations such as checking out into a new branch, creating a new branch, add codes, making commits. Everything is carried out with the help of these Git commands.

Image Source: dev_mountain

Git and GitHub: A head-to-head comparison:

Being a Software developer or collaborator, you must distinctly understand the difference between the two widely used terminologies: “Git” and “GitHub”.

After reading the above-mentioned individual introductions, you must now go through the head-to-head comparison between the two through the difference table given below for attaining more clarity.

Git Vs GitHub: Difference Table

Basis Of Difference	Git	GitHub
Year Introduced	First released in 2005	First released in 2008
Owned by	Maintained by the Linux foundation	Was purchased by Microsoft in 2008
Nature	Git is a software	GitHub is a service
Interface	It has a command-line interface	It has a graphical user interface
Host	Hosted locally	Hosted in the cloud
Objective	Version control and code sharing	Centralised repository hosting and collaboration
Desktop Interface	Comes with a command-line interface	Managed via its web app
User Management Features	Not available in Git	In-built user management features
Tool configuration features	Only a handful of tool configuration features are available	Abundant tool configuration features available
Language used	Written in C, Shell, Perl, Tcl and, Python	Written in Python
Developer	Developed by Linux Torvalds	Developed by Jesper Noehr
Subscription	All the features are absolutely free	Provides a set of paid features also
Common Competitors	IBM, Subversion, Mercurial, ClearCase and Rational Team Concert	Atlassian Bitbucket and GitLab

How to Integrate Git and GitHub in five steps?

You need to follow a series of steps in order to work with Git vs GitHub parallel for collaboration and version control. You need to understand that Git can be used for working efficiently with GitHub, therefore you need to brush up your skills with the former prior to their integration.

Please note that if you are already familiar with Git and it is pre-installed, then you can move to step two, else if you are new to this version control software you require to install it and add a few blocks of code before going forward.

Step 1: Install git and add a repository to it

First of all, download the git software for your Operating System (OS). Post this you have to run the installer. This process might vary depending on your Operating System. Finally, set up git using the command-line interface.

You need to understand a few terms before you start using Git:

• Repository: The location of the file where your project is stored.
• Commit: The command used to save new changes made to your project in the repository.
• Stage: Prior to committing changes in Git, you have to stage them – this provides the opportunity to prepare your code before officially including it in your project.
• Branch: The part of your project you’re currently working on.

For connecting git to GitHub, you have to add a repository and commit at least once. You can then host your project on GitHub and make it public.

Step 2: Creating a GitHub account

Now you require a GitHub account. You can sign up for free or you can go for a paid subscription plan. A free account provides all the base features required by a beginner for efficient code sharing. A paid plan is recommended for freelancers and highly skilled coders, or organisations that have to invest in a team plan for accessing additional project management and communication tools. Furthermore, GitHub extends a few discounts for non-profitable organisations, educators, and students.

Step 3: Adding a GitHub repository to your account

After creating and setting up your account, you are required to create a repository in GitHub for storing your project when you push it from git. 

• You can create a repository by clicking on the relevant link in the left-hand sidebar.
• Then choose a name for your repository.

You even have two options for modifying the access of the repository, it can be private, such that other GitHub users can refer to it and contribute to it, or it can be made private.

In both ways, as you’ll be using a pre-existing project, ensure that you leave the Initialize this repository with a README box unchecked.

Step 4: Pushing a repository to GitHub

You can add source code to your repository in multiple ways.

• If the GitHub repository is already set then you can easily push an existing repository from the command line option.
• The clipboard icon on the right allows you to copy the commands listed below, so that you may quickly paste them into your preferred command-line interface for creating a GitHub repository. After this refresh your GitHub page.

You can now view your repository in GitHub. From here, you can start making alterations to your project in real-time. You can even send and receive merge or pull requests, and use all the tools included with your plan.

Step 5: Pulling the changes made to your repository

You can view any change that you and others make to your project on GitHub, it doesn’t have direct access to your local storage. For keeping your project updated in your local storage, you can pull your updates via git.

For doing so, enter the git pull origin master in the command-line interface. This will update your files such that everything is synchronised across all iterations of your repository.

Frequently Asked Questions

Key Takeaways

Finally, after understanding both these terms we can conclude that both Git vs GitHub go hand-in-hand to ensure efficient collaboration and version control. GitHub provides a friendly user interface for networking, while Git is used for handling version control complications.

If you are thinking of building a career in Software development you can learn about the popular Git commands, this will help you in dealing with collaborations better and you can work in a team efficiently. If you want to have a live Git experience, devise a few projects of your own.

You can check out our courses on Web development and Android development with Kotlin if you wish to build a few projects on your own under the guidance of our Mentors.

By Vanshika Singolia