Difference between git rebase and merge

🛠 Tools and Programming
1

Differences Between merge and rebase

1. merge

  • Purpose: Merge the histories of two branches, creating a new merge commit.
  • Advantages:
    • Preserves the branch history and branching structure.
    • Simple to operate, suitable for team collaboration.
  • Disadvantages:
    • History may contain extra merge commits, making logs more complex.

Example:

A---B---C---D  (master)
     \
      E---F   (feature)

After executing git merge feature:

A---B---C---D---G  (master)
     \         /
      E-------F   (feature)

G is the merge commit.

2. rebase

  • Purpose: “Move” the commits of the current branch onto the latest commit of the target branch, rewriting the commit history.
  • Advantages:
    • Makes commit history more linear and tidy.
    • Easier to understand each change.
  • Disadvantages:
    • Rewrites history (commit hashes change), not suitable for public branches already pushed to remote.
    • Improper use may cause conflicts that are difficult to resolve.

Example:

A---B---C---D  (master)
     \
      E---F   (feature)

After executing git rebase master:

A---B---C---D---E'---F'  (feature)

E’ and F’ are new commits based on D.

3. Recommendations

  • merge: Suitable for team collaboration, preserves branch history.
  • rebase: Suitable for individual development or cleaning up commits, keeps history tidy.

4. Common Commands

  • Merge branch:

    git checkout master
git merge feature

  • Rebase branch:

    git checkout feature
git rebase master

5. Summary

Operation Rewrite History? Create Merge Commit? History Structure Recommended Scenario
merge No Yes Branch + Merge Team Collaboration
rebase Yes No Linear Personal Cleanup/Small Team

Note: Do not perform rebase on public branches already pushed to remote!

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