Sourcetree, by Atlassian, is a free version control client for Mac and Windows that works with Git and Mercurial repositories. It's distributed version control allows developers to visualize code, review changesets, stash, cherry-pick between branches or commit with a single click.
Learn about the best (and worst!) features Sourcetree has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 37 ratings of Sourcetree's features
Top Performing Features
10+10%
Version History
Keeps a record of all changes made to files in the repository, allowing users to track the evolution of the code and revert to previous versions if needed.
Category average: 9.1
8-7%
Version Control Collaboration Tools
Facilitates collaboration among team members by enabling them to work on the same codebase concurrently, resolve conflicts, and review each other's changes.
Category average: 8.6
7-21%
Branching and Merging
Allows users to create separate branches to work on specific features or fixes and merge them back into the main codebase when ready.
Category average: 8.9
Areas for Improvement
5-44%
Pull Requests
Provides a mechanism for developers to request code reviews, discuss changes, and merge code into the main branch after approval.
Category average: 8.9
5-39%
Branch Protection
Prevents accidental or unauthorized changes to critical branches by restricting direct commits and enforcing code review processes before merging.
Category average: 8.2
3-55%
Issue Tracking Integration
Integrates with issue tracking systems to link code changes to specific issues or tasks, providing traceability and context for changes made.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Software Engineer Specialist in Information Technology at FIS (10,001+ employees employees)
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I use Sourcetree for the majority of my git operations. The key features for me are: Visual Git Management - I like being able to see things visually. Branching and Merging - Visualize the history. Repository Management - Import and add repositories. Commit History and Diff Viewing - This is key for preparing for a merge operation and to pull in updates. Staging and Unstaging Changes - Again, a visual selection of the files to stage/unstage and then push.
Pros
Merge Changes - helping you handle merge conflicts.
Comparing branches.
Visually showing various paths that existing branches are following.
It is easy to import already downloaded repositories.
And it integrates with Bitbucket (web), where I can click a menu in Bitbucket and have it download and import the repo to my local environment.
Cons
Previously, it was hard to sort and move items in the main window, but that issue seems to have been resolved.
It would be nice to be able to select a block of repos and have it open each and pull down the latest changes -- I have to open each repo and pull, then close. Very repetitive.
Return on Investment
Enabled developers to use Git in a way they are more comfortable with.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology (201-500 employees employees)
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Sourcetree is Git GUI which is very useful tool, user friendly and provides all the functionalities required for managing git repositories, it is also easily integrated with Bit bucket and other tools which are required in software development workflow, its user authentication using tokens is also a helpful feature to switch between multiple accounts and repositories.
Pros
Supports Git LFS and provides storage for large repos.
Team collaboration and rule-based restriction on repos
Easy to understand GUI elements
Cons
Refreshing of the interface after a commit or merge
All elements being consistent with the repo status
Select all button on Trach status on different branches
Return on Investment
Positive ROI
Helped with Robust delivery by developers.
Improved repository rules and merging ways that helped in streamlining the development process.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Senior Analytics Engineer in Corporate at Adaptavist (501-1000 employees employees)
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Some developers use Sourcetree as a way of managing their git repositories. You can see what branches are present on the remote, when they were made and if/when they were closed. It's good for visualising lots of branches and commit history at the same time. There's lots of information in Sourcetree, but this can sometimes make it overwhelming.
For advance git developers or auditors it can be helpful when reviewing the history of a repo.
Pros
There's lots of information about the repo, commits, authors, branches etc. For example you can explore the metadata of a single commit such as when it happened, it's ID, it's parent ID, the author, and any labels.
You can explore the history of the repo as a branch graph - This can be helpful to see what branches were live and what other work was going on at that time. You can explore each branch, commits etc. And the visualisation makes it easier to understand how 'busy' a repo was at a certain time period and see how branches were merged.
There's lots of functions and features which can make complex git actions more streamlined and GUI based. This is great for anyone looking to perform complex git actions or really dive into 'under the hood' management of repos. The merge conflict actions in particular can be helpful.
Cons
As an Atlassian product i'd have expected smart integrations/features with their other developer products like Jira or BitBucket, but this is not the case. It can sometimes pick up on Jira ticket IDs and show them as a label or as a unique piece of work to follow. But there's no actual integration to Jira and is just simple pattern matching.
For the majority of developers it's just overwhelming and overkill. There's a plethora of metadata, supporting information, and many many actions/tools to help perform complex git actions. This is great if you're managing complex repos or need to perform an audit, but to the average user it's just not a user friendly experience due to how bloated it can feel.
Very simple git actions such as 'git pull' have been massively overcomplicated. When pressing the pull button you get a popup with multiple dropdowns, checkboxes and settings on how you want to pull and the followup actions to run after the pull, both on the remote repo and local repo. It's just unnecessary and adding complexity where it's not needed.
Return on Investment
In my experience, using Sourcetree actually slows down development if you're the average developer needing to do simple git actions. Getting set up is fast, but the learning curve to use the tool is just too steep if you're just looking to push, pull, commit, branch etc.
Sourcetree is not implemented by default at our company, but is recommended as we primarily use Atlassian products. However the lack of integration with other Atlassian products means that this git GUI doesn't give any more or less ROI for your Atlassian ecosystem compared to another git GUI tool.
For auditing and exploring history Sourcetree can be very helpful. Having all of this information in one place with a plethora of actions and tools at your disposal means you can audit repos much quicker than any other git GUI or online repo explorer.
Usability
Alternatives Considered
GitHub, GitHub Copilot, Bitbucket Server (discontinued), Bitbucket, GitLab and Gitpod
Other Software Used
dbt, Gitpod, GitLab, Bitbucket Server (discontinued), Bitbucket, HashiCorp Terraform
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Employee in Information Technology (201-500 employees employees)
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I use SourceTree to manage all the GIT repositories that we have. It easily connects to the Azure DevOps repos, so I don't need to search for the repo's URL when I want to clone it. For merge conflicts, it has an interface that is easy enough to solve those issues.
