Tower is a paid desktop Git client for macOS and Windows, sold per user on annual plans, and people leave it for three practical reasons. Some need a Linux build, which the downloads on its feature page do not include. Others balk at paying every year for a tool that is mostly a window onto free software. A third group wants a one-vendor client that also covers pull requests or a terminal workflow. The alternatives below range from German-made commercial tools to volunteer projects.
Sebastiaan SmitsFounderShort answer: SmartGit, Fork and Sublime Merge head the list of Tower alternatives drawn from our git client software ranking. Our rule for order: vendors outside the big brands go first, and the largest names are not placed in the top three. SmartGit is the one to try if your team includes Linux machines and you prefer a German vendor. Each of the 11 alternatives sits in Best Git Client Software in 2026 and is described against Tower.
Vendors can pay for more visibility on this website, for example a higher place in a ranking or more room on a page. Commercial relationships can also affect which products we feature and how prominently. Every vendor link is marked the same, whatever the arrangement behind it. How that works.
Tower's pricing page lists Basic at 59 euros, Pro at 99 euros and Enterprise at 125 euros per user, all billed annually. Pro adds stacked branches and team billing, while single sign-on and priority support sit on Enterprise. A solo developer or a ten-person team pays again every year for something that sits on top of Git, and free clients cover much of the same ground.
Downloads are offered for macOS and for Windows, with x64 and ARM builds on the Windows side, and the pricing page says one licence works on both. Linux is not mentioned anywhere we read. A mixed team with Linux workstations cannot give everybody the same client, so some staff end up in a different tool or in a terminal.
The feature page names stacked branches, custom workflows, Graphite support, branch cleanup, self-hosted repository connections and merge detection as Pro features. Basic is described as pull requests plus a services manager. Teams that adopt Tower for branch stacking therefore need Pro per seat, and anyone wanting invoicing and wire transfer or SAML sign-on must go to the dearest tier.
| Alternative | Headquarters | Free option | Pricing model | Switch if | Our rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SmartGit | Germany | No free tier | Published | your team includes Linux machines and you prefer a German vendor | #2 |
| Fork | Not stated by the vendor | No free tier | Published | you want one flat price instead of three annual tiers | #1 |
| Sublime Merge | Not stated by the vendor | No free tier | See profile | you want to see the commands a client runs and need a Linux build | #4 |
| Gitfox | Not stated by the vendor | No free tier | See profile | you work only on recent Macs and want issue links beside your commits | #11 |
| Gittyup | Not stated by the vendor | No free tier | See profile | you want a free graphical client with blame on all three desktop systems | #8 |
| Git Cola | Not stated by the vendor | No free tier | See profile | you value a GPL licence and a client that installs through pip or winget | #7 |
| Lazygit | Not stated by the vendor | No free tier | See profile | you already live in a terminal and want zero licence cost | #5 |
| GitButler | Not stated by the vendor | No free tier | Published | stacked branches are the reason you bought Tower and you want them without a fee | #6 |
| GitKraken | Not stated by the vendor | Yes | Published | you need Linux and a browser version and accept another seat-based subscription | #12 |
| Sourcetree | Not stated by the vendor | Yes | Published | your team uses Bitbucket or still has Mercurial repositories | #13 |
| GitHub Desktop | Not stated by the vendor | No free tier | See profile | your repositories live on GitHub and you want drag-and-drop history edits at no stated cost | #14 |
Germany · Published
SmartGit is made by syntevo GmbH in Ainring, Germany, a company that sells this single product, and it installs on Windows, macOS and Linux. Its home page names Smart Branching, Git Flow, pull requests and Git LFS. Pricing is split into a non-commercial and a commercial page, and the free labels for open source and education carry no published terms.
Switch from Tower if your team includes Linux machines and you prefer a German vendor.
Not stated by the vendor · Published
Fork lists one licence at one price beside its download buttons, so nobody has to choose a plan or step up later when they want a feature. Interactive rebase editing, an image diff viewer and a built-in conflict resolver appear on the page. Builds exist for Mac and Windows only, the footer credits one named developer, and the evaluation length is unstated.
Switch from Tower if you want one flat price instead of three annual tiers.
Our git client software guide puts Fork at 1 of 14; read why →
Not stated by the vendor · See profile
Sublime Merge comes from Sublime HQ Pty Ltd, with a Sydney suburb address on its page, and runs on Windows, Linux and Mac. It prints the exact Git commands it runs, stages by hunk or single line, and searches history by message, author, path or content. The Buy link leads to a separate store, and no evaluation terms showed on the home page.
Switch from Tower if you want to see the commands a client runs and need a Linux build.
Sublime Merge, #4 of 14 in our git client software ranking →
Not stated by the vendor · See profile
Gitfox is written in Swift and AppKit without Electron, so it is a native Mac application, with a 30-day full-feature trial and no card. It drafts commit messages from staged changes through Claude or Codex, links issues from GitHub, GitLab, Gitea and Jira Cloud, and signs with SSH and GPG. It requires macOS 15 or later and names no company.
Switch from Tower if you work only on recent Macs and want issue links beside your commits.
Open the Gitfox profile, 11st of 14 in the git client software guide →
Not stated by the vendor · See profile
Gittyup is maintained by Murmele with volunteers and began as a fork of GitAhead, according to its own changelog. Diffs support single-line staging, blame comes with an integrated timeline, and commit message templates are built in. It runs on Linux, Windows and macOS at no charge, with a Liberapay link for donations. Volunteers promise no service level.
Switch from Tower if you want a free graphical client with blame on all three desktop systems.
Gittyup holds rank 8 among 14 entries in our git client software guide →
Not stated by the vendor · See profile
Git Cola is GPL-2.0 software written in Python on a Qt binding, and it runs on Linux, macOS, Windows and FreeBSD. A sequence editor handles interactive rebase, and subcommands such as find and grep open straight into the relevant view. It installs through distribution packages, Homebrew, winget or pip. Its repository belongs to an organisation with no named company, so there is no paid support.
Switch from Tower if you value a GPL licence and a client that installs through pip or winget.
Git Cola comes 7 of 14 when git client software products are ranked here →
Not stated by the vendor · See profile
Lazygit is a terminal interface under the MIT licence, maintained by Jesse Duffield, shipping release binaries for Windows, macOS and Linux. Line staging, interactive rebase, cherry-pick, bisect, worktrees and reflog-based undo are all listed. Nothing is bought, but nobody answers the phone either: help means GitHub issues, and every action is made from a keyboard inside a terminal window.
Switch from Tower if you already live in a terminal and want zero licence cost.
Full verdict on Lazygit, which sits at number 5 of 14 for git client software →
Not stated by the vendor · Published
GitButler works on parallel and stacked branches with unlimited undo, plus history edits such as absorb and reorder. It ships a desktop app and a command-line tool with JSON output, and the vendor describes the product as free of charge. Its source is on GitHub, though the licence is not named on the page, and the business model behind a free tool remains unexplained.
Switch from Tower if stacked branches are the reason you bought Tower and you want them without a fee.
Full verdict on GitButler, which sits at number 6 of 14 for git client software →
Not stated by the vendor · Published
GitKraken runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, and in a browser as well. The free Community plan covers local repositories and public remotes, and private remote access needs a paid plan. Pro, Advanced, Business and Enterprise are per-seat and billed annually, with 14-day and 30-day trials depending on tier. The legal entity is Axosoft, LLC, with no country stated.
Switch from Tower if you need Linux and a browser version and accept another seat-based subscription.
Not stated by the vendor · Published
Sourcetree is a free download for Windows and Mac, with copyright shown to Atlassian. It handles Git and Mercurial, interactive rebase, Git LFS and built-in git-flow, and the home page promotes its Bitbucket integration. No Linux build, plan list or support terms appear there. It is the only client on this list that also speaks Mercurial.
Switch from Tower if your team uses Bitbucket or still has Mercurial repositories.
Why Sourcetree is #13 among 14 git client software products →
Not stated by the vendor · See profile
GitHub Desktop is made by GitHub, Inc., and its source is public at github.com/desktop/desktop. Cherry-pick, squash and reorder work by drag and drop, with stashing and diff comparison alongside. The page shows no price, and its only visible download is for macOS on Apple Silicon, so Windows and Linux availability could not be confirmed from it.
Switch from Tower if your repositories live on GitHub and you want drag-and-drop history edits at no stated cost.
GitHub Desktop review, listed at 14 of 14 git client software products →
SmartGit: SmartGit installs on Windows, macOS and Linux and comes from syntevo GmbH in Germany.
Fork: Fork lists a single licence price beside its downloads, with rebase editing and a conflict resolver named.
Lazygit: It is MIT licensed, with line staging, interactive rebase and reflog-based undo, and help comes via GitHub issues.
GitButler: It works on parallel and stacked branches with unlimited undo, and the vendor describes it as free of charge.
Sourcetree: It handles Git and Mercurial and promotes its Bitbucket integration, as a free download for Windows and Mac.
Tower remains a sensible purchase for a Mac or Windows team that wants a polished client and will use what the upper plans add. The 30-day Pro trial needs no card, every plan carries a 30-day money-back guarantee, and Pro gets 10 percent off at ten or more seats. Students, educators, educational institutions and non-profits can apply for free licences. Holders of older licences get 50 percent off the first year of an upgrade.
A Git client holds no data of its own beyond settings, so your repositories, branches and remotes carry over untouched. What you rebuild is credentials, signing keys and any Tower workflow settings. Clone or open a working copy in the new client and check that stashes and untracked files appear as expected.
Stacking is listed under Pro, and each client handles it differently or not at all. Before cancelling, run one real feature chain through the replacement, including a rebase after a lower branch changes. Annual billing means the date of non-renewal matters, so note it now.
The money-back guarantee runs 30 days from purchase, so a fresh buyer can try an alternative inside that window. Older licence holders should keep their key, since the discounted upgrade needs it at checkout.
The pricing page shows 59 euros for Basic, 99 euros for Pro and 125 euros for Enterprise, each billed annually per user. Each also shows a smaller monthly-style figure, which the page does not label.
Downloads are offered for macOS and Windows, with x64 and ARM builds on Windows. We saw no Linux mention. SmartGit, Sublime Merge, GitKraken, Gittyup and Git Cola all list Linux.
A 30-day trial starts on the Pro edition with all Pro features and needs no credit card. A 30-day money-back guarantee applies to all plans on request.
Gittyup, Git Cola, Lazygit, GitButler and Sourcetree are offered without a price. Lazygit is terminal only, and Sourcetree has no Linux download on its home page.
The pricing page says students, educators, educational institutions and non-profits can use it free of charge, after an application. Nothing is automatic.
Fork shows one price next to its download buttons with no tiers. We did not read the amount on the page, so check it before comparing with Tower's 59 euros.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Author and fact-checker: Sebastiaan Smits. This page was last reviewed on 7 November 2026; our review process is public.
