What Is Git?

Git is a version control system — a tool that remembers all the changes in your code. Imagine Google Docs but for code — every change is saved, you can return to any previous version, and several people can work on the same project at once without conflicts.

Git is a tool (software) for version control that runs locally on your computer. GitHub is an online platform (service) that hosts Git repositories in the cloud and adds features such as pull requests, issues, CI/CD and collaboration. You can use Git without GitHub, but GitHub requires Git.

For a simple WordPress site or a static site, Git is not mandatory, but it is very useful. Git lets you track all changes, safely test new functionality in branches and easily revert to a previous version if something goes wrong. For professional projects, Git is the industry standard.

A typical workflow: the developer makes changes locally, commits them to Git, pushes to GitHub/GitLab, where a CI/CD pipeline automatically tests the code and deploys it to the server. This is called Git-based deployment and is used by companies of all sizes — from startups to Google.

A commit is a "snapshot" of your code at a particular moment — like "Save" in a game. Each commit has a unique ID, a message describing the changes, an author and a timestamp. You can return to any previous commit and see the exact code as it was at that moment.