There are two components to using Git. A server for offsite sharing of your files and a client to work with locally.

Clients are available for all major operating systems. The most common client is to use the Git client at the command line. You can download the software from GitHub.com which I’ll talk about more in a moment.

The Git command line client works on most platforms such as Windows, linux or Mac. You can also use Git clients from Atlassian found at Sourcetreeapp.com. To download that requires an email signup but is otherwise free.

You may also find Git to be integrated in your favorite IDE such as Eclipse. When you want to save your work remotely you’ll need a server. During this course I’ll focus on GitHub.com. It’s the largest code repository in the world.

GitHub is a web-based Git repository hosting service, which offers all of the distributed revision control and source code management (SCM) functionality of Git as well as adding its own features. Unlike Git, which is strictly a command-line tool, GitHub provides a web-based graphical interface and desktop as well as mobile integration. It also provides access control and several collaboration features such as wikis, task management, and bug tracking and feature requests for every project.[3]

GitHub offers both plans for private repositories and free accounts,[4] which are usually used to host open-source software projects.[5] As of 2015, GitHub reports having over 9 million users and over 21.1 million repositories,[6] making it the largest code hoster in the world.[7]