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Comments (338)

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  fxtentacle
  I feel like I really need to learn how to raise money. For $17M, one could probably build a vacuum robot prototype that’ll also clean up all of the kids toys and sort LEGO bricks by colour and size. Parents worldwide would love it.But instead, we get a replacement for Git. And I didn’t even bother to click the link because I’m fine with how Git works. On the list of pain points in my life, “what comes after Git” has roughly the same priority as “try out a more exciting shower gel”. But did you ever step on a LEGO brick while walking to the bathroom at night? That pain is immediately obvious.Why is nobody solving actual problems anymore?
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  tmountain
  I personally feel that:1) Git is fine2) I would not want to replace critical open source tooling with something backed by investor capital from its inception.Sure, it will be “open source “, but with people throwing money behind it, there’s a plan to extract value from the user base from day one.I’m tired of being “the product”.Critical open source tooltips by should spring from the community, not from corporate sponsorship.
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  znnajdla
  I continue to be amazed at American capital allocation. $17M for an idea to improve Git? For a fraction of that money Ukrainian housewives build anti-drone air defence systems in their garage that protect their country. For that kind of money you could build an apartment block to ease the housing shortage. You could invest in electricity resilience and build mini nuclear power plants or a small wind farm. Soviet capital allocation: while they were pouring money into their space program and building the "biggest baddest military helicopters" there wasn't enough bread in grocery stores.
• qwery
  First off, I'm of course interested to see what the future infrastructure of software building next looks like.> The hard problem is not generating change, it’s organizing, reviewing, and integrating change without creating chaos.Sure, writing some code isn't the bottleneck. Glossed over is the part where the developer determines what changes to make, which in my experience is the most significant cost during development and it dwarfs anything to do with version control. You can spend a lot of energy on the organising, reviewing, patching, etc. stuff -- and you should be doing some amount of this, in most situations -- but if you're spending more of your development budget on metaprojects than you think you should be, I don't think optimising the metatooling is going to magically resolve that. Address the organisational issues first.> This is what we’re doing at GitButler, this is why we’ve raised the funding to help build all of this, faster.The time constraint ("faster") is, of course, entirely self-imposed for business reasons. There's no reason to expect that 'high cost + high speed' is the best or even a good way to build this sort of tooling, or anything else, for that matter.Git's UI has become increasingly friendly over a very long time of gradual improvements. Yes, Mercurial was pretty much ideal out of the gate, but the development process in that case was (AFAIK) a world away from burning money and rushing to the finish.Maybe going slow is better?
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  tiffanyh
  A lot of people seem confused about how they raised the money, but it’s actually a pretty easy VC pitch.- It’s from one of GitHub’s cofounders.- GitHub had a $7.5B exit.- And the story is: AI is completely changing how software gets built, with plenty of proof points already showing up in the billions in revenue being made from things like Claude Code, Cusor, Codex, etc.So the pitch is basically: back the team that can build the universal infrastructure for AI and agentic coding.
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  Meleagris
  I recently switched to Jujutsu (jj) and it made me realize that “what comes after Git” might already exist.It turns out the snapshot model is a perfect fit for AI-assisted development. I can iterate freely without thinking about commits or worrying about saving known-good versions.You can just mess around and make it presentable later, which Git never really let you do nicely.Plus there’s essentially zero learning curve, since all the models know how to use JJ really well.
• hotgeart
  Git just works. If you're not really familiar with it, you can use a free UI. If you don't know anything about it, AI like ChatGPT or Claude can help you commit or even teach you Git.If you raise money for this project, you probably intend to make money in the near future. I don’t think anyone here wants ads on Git or to argue with a manager to get the premium version of GitButler just because you reached the commit limit.These $17M should go to the Git maintainers.
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  factorialboy
  Installed GitButler to try it out — and realized it installs malicious Git hooks to take over the git commit workflow:* pre-commit — The malicious one. It intercepted every `git commit` attempt and aborted it with that error message, forcing you to use `but commit` instead. Effectively a commit hijack — no way to commit to your own repo without their tool.* post-checkout — Fired whenever you switched branches. GitButler used it to track your branch state and sync its virtual branch model. It cleaned this one up itself when we checked out.* There's also typically a prepare-commit-msg hook that GitButler installs to inject its metadata into commit messages, though we didn't hit that one.* The pre-commit hook is the aggressive one — it's a standard git hook location, so git runs it unconditionally before every commit. GitButler installs it silently as part of "setting up" a repo, with no opt-in. The only escape (without their CLI) is exactly what we did: delete it manually.
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  treeblah
  Claims about “what comes after git” aside, I really like the idea of virtual branches. Worktrees have a pitfall IMO that they don’t allow you to test changes in a running local env, meaning I need to commit the changes, close the worktree, and checkout the branch on my primary workspace to verify.Gitbutler virtual branches OTOH appear to provide branch independence for agents/commits, while simultaneously allowing me to locally verify all branches together in a single local env. This seems quite a bit nicer than checking out worktree branches in the primary workspace for verification, or trying to re-run local setup in each worktree.
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  MBCook
  Why does it take $17m to beat Git?How will you ever get the network effects needed to get sustained users with a commercial tool?Given Git was created because BitKeeper, a commercial tool, pulled their permission for kernel developers to use their tool aren’t we ignoring a lesson there?
• hansmayer
  "Gitbutler", really rolls off the tongue, doesn´t it :) Oh and the irony of raising $17M to "replace" a tool which kinda...does not need replacing at all? How about replacing some of the entshittified services, like Google Workspace? Now that would be worth the $17M raised.
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  jillesvangurp
  Why are investors still investing in SAAS products like this? I've heard some investors made rather blunt statements about such investments being a very hard sell to them at this point. Clearly somebody believes differently here.We have AI now. AI tools are pretty handy with Git. I've not manually resolved git conflicts in months now. That's more or less a solved problem for me. Mostly codex creates and manages pull requests for me. I also have it manage my GitHub issues on some projects. For some things, I also let it do release management with elaborate checklists, release prep, and driving automation for package deployment via github actions triggered via tags, and then creating the gh release and attaching binaries. In short, I just give a thumbs up and all the right things happen.To be blunt, I think a SAAS service that tries to make Git nicer to use is a going to be a bit redundant. I don't think AI tools really need that help. Or a git replacement. And people will mostly be delegating whatever it is they still do manually with Git pretty soon. I've made that switch already because I'm an early adopter. And because I'm lazy and it seems AI is more disciplined at following good practices and process than I am.
• mort96
  What "comes after Git" is not a proprietary solution developed by a VC-backed company.
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  nikolay
  The only security incident I've had in my career was due to Git Butler - it committed temporary files into GitHub without me explicitly approving it! Of course, it was a private repository, but still, it became impossible to delete those secrets because there were plenty of commits afterward. Given the large file tree and many updated files in the commit, it wasn't apparent that those folders got sneaked into the commit.So, I really hope security incidents don't come after Git!
• ivanjermakov
  X is hard to use because when something goes wrong you need to have a deep knowledge to figure it out! Let's build Y on top of X to make this easy! Now you just need to have deep knowledge of both Y and X to figure problems out. And it's gonna cost $17M to build Y. Deal?
• weedhopper
  The amount of ~skepticism~ hate is astounding here!! People don’t even acknowledge that it’s written in RUST!!!!
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  OsrsNeedsf2P
  To all the salty people- the person cofounded GitHub. It's not the product that raised 17M, it's the person.
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  pu_pe
  I actually believe we need to rethink Git for modern needs. Saving prompts and sessions alongside commits could become the norm for example, or I could imagine having different flags for whether a contribution was created by a human or not.This doesn't seem to be the direction these guys are going though, it looks like they think Git should be more social or something.
• gcr
  jj is rapidly becoming the new standard for post-git VCS in my circles. I’d love to see more startups working on that.
• nacozarina
  Is $17M private equity enough to poison the initiative? Or is software-by-committee still the real project killer? Let’s find out…
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  steelbrain
  The source code is hosted on Github: https://github.com/gitbutlerapp/gitbutlerI was really hoping we'd see some competition to Github, but no, this is competition for the likes of the Conductor App. Disappointed, I must say. I am tired of using and waiting for alternatives of, Github.The diff view in particular makes me rage. CodeMirror has a demo where they render a million lines. Github starts dying when rendering a couple thousand. There are options like Codeberg but the experience is unfortunately even worse.
• al_borland
  I like what I see in the video, it would solve a lot of problems I end up having with git.That said, I find the branding confusing. They say this is what comes after git, but in the name and the overall functionality, seems to just be an abstraction on top of git, not a new source control tool to replace git.
• tankenmate
  As long as this tool doesn't break "fast forward merge" and proper linear history and allows you do delete PRs unlike its GitHub progenitor then I'm happy.I have found that a number of times GitHub's idea of "convenient" comes either from 1) not understanding git fundamentals such that it closes off possible workflows, or 2) pushing a philosophy on users, i.e. I know better than you, so I'm going to block you.
• hmontazeri
  i dont get it, watched the video seeing the "power" of using multiple branches at the same workdirectory etc. all i was thinking was ok they want to make it easy for coding agents work with multiple branches / feautres at once... Just that works already pretty well with git and worktrees... and agent uses the tools anyway... dont know what they want to build with 17M
• 0xy4sh
  Makes sense. Git solved versioning, not collaboration at scale. Most real pain today is juggling context across PRs, tools, and now agents not writing code.
• ojura
  Mmmh. git is perfect as it is. It does one thing and does it really well: version control. Exact bits that go in come out. And it reconciles different versions and handles transferring them to remotes.The need for exactly this is not ever going away, and its ubiquity proves that Linus nailed something that is truly fundamental.This is like saying we need a new alphabet because of AI. That is VC hype, even if it comes from a Github founder.
• yellow_lead
  I thought gitbutler was not a great name, but then I saw their CLI command name is "but"
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  aoshifo
  Remind me, how much venture capital did Linus need to raise for building git?
• jumploops
  I don't know about a new Git, but GitHub feels like the cruftiest part of agentic coding.The Github PR flow is second nature to me, almost soothing.But it's also entirely unnecessary and sometimes even limiting to the agent.
• rohitpaulk
  Most of the comments here are clearly from people who haven't used GitButler. Try it out and it's a very sticky product, clearly superior workflow to vanilla Git.
• callamdelaney
  Apparently what comes after git is git
• voidUpdate
  Is this actually replacing git, or just a new frontend for the same git stuff? In any case, I'll be interested to see if this still exists in a year, and if that $17M actually made it replace git
• bob1029
  Git is pretty close to ideal for the distributed model.I think the real money is in figuring out a centralized model that doesn't suck. Explicitly locking things has certain advantages. Two people working on the same file at the same time is often cursed in some way even if a merge is technically possible. Especially if it's a binary asset. Someone is going to lose all of their work if we have a merge conflict on a png file. It would be much better to know up front that the file is locked by some other artist on the team.
• nottorp
  Humm at a quick glance git was functional enough for the linux kernel after 2 people worked on it for 4 months. That doesn't really add up to 17M.
• foota
  Some others mentioned pijul, but I will put in my two cents about it. I have been looking to make use of it because it seems really nice for working with an agent. Essentially you get patches that are independently and can be applied anywhere instead of commits. If there is ambiguity applying a patch then you have to resolve it, but that resolution is sort of a first class object.
• hanwenn
  Is anyone from GitButler reading this?As others alluded, JJ already exists and is a credible successor to Git for the client side.Technical desides aside though: how is this supposed to make money for the investors?
• loveparade
  I watched the video but I don't quite get it. I feel like I'm missing something? A nicer git workflow is not what I need because I can ask an LLM to fix my git state and branches. This feels a bit backwards. LLMs are already great at working with raw git as their primitive.I'm curious what their long term vision they pitched investors is.
• mhh__
  Improving something that basically everyone uses is obviously worth money
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  hdgvhicv
  Linus built git in an afternoon with $17 for snacks
• momocowcow
  Blog post written by llm.No thanks.Was their series A pitch also written by llm?
• kshri24
  Great! Instead of solving actual problems we are seeing funding for stuff we don't need.
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  politelemon
  The title mentions 'after git' but the video demo shows that it's very much tied to git and Github. The post also mentions the overhead of dealing with git, but the examples shown come with their own overhead and commands. I'm admittedly unable to see the appeal or just misunderstanding it, but the number of stars on the repo shows I'm in the minority.
• danpalmer
  jj is what comes after git.It can back on to git if you want, so a migration doesn't have to be all-at-once. It already has all of these features and more. It's stable, fast, very extensible.jj truly is the future of version control, whereas git plus some loosely specified possibly proprietary layer is not.I'm excited to see what ersc.io produces for a jj hosting service and hopefully review UI.
• fuzzy2
  Dunno what they’re trying to build, but I encourage everyone to try what they already have built. It helps me work on multiple changesets in parallel. This often just happens, for example you work on something and discover a bug in something else that needs to be fixed. In GitButler, I can just create another branch, drag the changes in there, push and done.Also, if you ever worked with Perforce, you might be familiar with changelists. It’s kind of like that.Now, GitButler is by no means perfect. There are many rough edges. It tends to get stuck in unexpected states and sometimes it isn’t easy to rectify this.It also cannot split changes in a single file, which is a bummer, because that’s something I encounter routinely. But I understand this complicates the existing model tremendously.
• everybodyknows
  I can't see any significant difference between their "Operations Log":https://docs.gitbutler.com/cli-guides/cli-tutorial/operation...and git's reflog:https://git-scm.com/docs/git-reflog
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  admiralrohan
  They need to have a dedicated page explaining me why should I change my current workflow. Else I don't get the point.
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  rsanheim
  Wow. So much hate in the comments here. Of all the funding / equity events lately, I wonder how this one gets so much doubt and distrust from the start.If this isn’t something to at least root for, in the sense of a small team, novel product, serving a real need, then I dunno what is. You can use jj or tangled and still appreciate improvements to git and vcs on the web in general. Competition amongst many players is a good thing, even if you don’t believe in this one particular vision.Heaven forbid it isn’t 100M going to a YC alum for yet another AI funding raise.
• TRCat
  I was skeptical at first, but then I watched the video and it really looks interesting. I wonder if this works with Azure DevOps?
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  satvikpendem
  Why this and not jujutsu, pijul or sapling? These are all version control systems that are better than git in various ways.
• solidarnosc
  That's a lot of money for something very much not necessary... I'm in the wrong business!
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  charlesfries
  I'd like to see some kind of "whitespace aware" smart diff in whatever comes after git
• maxehmookau
  Ok, ok, if you give me $16M I'll do it faster.
• aleksanb
  Linus Torvalds was able to build this in a cave!With a box of scraps!
• 999900000999
  How do you intend to make money ?Easier Git doesn't translate into something I can get my boss to pay for.
• latexr
  > I know what you’re thinking. You’re hoping that we’ll use phrases such as “we’re excited,” “this is just the beginning,” and “AI is changing everything”. While all those things are trueSuperbly tone deaf. The only people who might possibly want to read that are those already drinking your Kool-Aid, most everyone else can already smell the bullshit.
• anishgupta
  GitHub CEO also raised 60M for 'entire' to bring agent context to git. The dust is yet to settle here as it's difficult to bring a paridgm shift from today's git workflows
• dhruv3006
  Github fallout effect?
• cocodill
  There is only a tiny final step left, a real piece of cake, to build the thing.
• red_admiral
  I'm still not convinced we need a replacement for git.> The old model assumed one person, one branch, one terminal, one linear flow.Um, there's more than one flow out there? Feature branches are usually "one person, lots of branches, squish at the end". Since when is Git linear? Some of them even come with their own scripts or GUIs.I'm even less convinced that something that's raised $17M already will provide a free-as-in-beer solution.
• pjmalandrino
  Wow, very impressive, great job! You mentioned monitoring, I think it might be a very interesting way to see the "ongoing" work of your agents and orchestrate them. Do you have a precise idea on how it's going to happen, or is this already planned?
• ultrablack
  For $17 milion there are few thibga without any gui that i couldnt build.
• anon
  undefined
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  f33d5173
  Isn't that jj? Hopefully no one tells the VCs.
• secondcoming
  > Imaging being able to work on a branch stacked on a coworkers branch while you’re both constantly modifying themI think that's something I don't want to imagine
• alexpadula
  Rather confusing, your name has Git in it, “to build what comes after git”, what comes after your own Git product? Good luck.
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  ekjhgkejhgk
  I refuse to use anything other than git for versioning.
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  olalonde
  > I may have even had a small hand in some part of that.Quite an understatement. I'm pretty sure GitHub is the primary reason that Git took off like it did.
• burnerRhodov2
  $17m to replace git with but. no fucking way
• ddtaylor
  Raising a bunch of money to recreate the wheel.
• johntopia
  gitbutler is actually a great product tbh
• anon
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• orthecreedence
  > We've raised $17M to build something like git and bait-and-switch it later because VCs only exist to extract value and anything we end up building will be a shadow of a fart of how useful git actually isFTFY. I don't understand how anyone could think to replace git by raising money. The only way to truly do this is grassroots iteration. You can build the software, but the distribution will never reach the same network size as git before your investors start asking "When do I get my return?"> Imagine your tools telling you as soon as there are possible merge conflicts between teammates, rather than at the end of the process.So you're centralizing a fully distributed process because grepping for "<<<<<<<" and asking your teammate the best way to merge is too hard? I thought coding was supposed to be social?I mean, honestly, go for it and build what you want. I'm all for it! But maybe don't compare it to git. It's tone deaf.
• anon
  undefined
• pjmlp
  Good luck with that, I would still be using subversion if given the choice.
• ltbarcly3
  "We are going to spend $17M and have nothing to show for it"
• grugdev42
  No. Just no.Leave Git alone.
• throwaway290
  TL;DR we decided git needs more "ai" and we got money thrown at us!
• BIG-TRVKE
  [flagged]
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  tormeh
  Pijul?Git has issues, but it works pretty well once you learn it and it's basically universal. Will be hard to dislodge.