Why Nebula?

GitKraken is a great tool, but several of its key features, such as private repositories and multiple accounts, sit behind a paid plan. Nebula is a free alternative under the MIT license. It covers everyday Git work and puts extra effort into the areas where other clients feel clumsy:

• Merge conflicts are dead simple. A conflict is a state, not an error: pick mine, theirs or both per block (keys 1 2 3), and Nebula opens the next file for you.
• Multiple GitHub and GitLab accounts, done right. Choose the account per repository. Nebula injects that account's token only into its own commands, so your global gh login never changes.
• The right commit identity, every time. Set identities per repository, per folder or globally. A banner warns you before you commit with the wrong email.
• Nebula runs your real Git. It calls the git and gh binaries you already have, with no bundled reimplementation, so whatever Nebula does you can reproduce in a terminal.

Features

Graph and history

• Commit graph with colored lanes, merge curves and author avatars (GitHub or Gravatar, with initials as a fallback)
• Branch, remote and tag labels; a WIP row for uncommitted changes
• Search by message, author or SHA (⌘F / Ctrl+F)
• File history (follows renames), blame, and comparison of any two commits or branches

Everyday Git

• Stage, unstage and discard changes by file, by hunk or by line; commit and amend
• Branches: create, check out (double-click), merge, rebase, rename, delete
• Drag a branch onto another to merge, rebase, fast-forward or open a pull request
• Commits: cherry-pick, revert, reset (soft, mixed or hard), branch or tag here
• Stashes: stash, apply, pop, drop
• Fetch, pull (fast-forward, merge or rebase) and push (with force-with-lease), with ahead/behind badges and a progress HUD
• Undo and redo (⌘Z / ⇧⌘Z, or Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z) for commits, merges, pulls, rebases, cherry-picks, resets, checkouts, branches and stashes

Power tools

• Interactive rebase: pick, reword, squash and drop; drag to reorder
• Continue, skip or abort for merge, rebase, cherry-pick and revert; no editor ever pops up
• Remotes, worktrees (each opens in its own tab), submodules and Git LFS

GitHub and GitLab

• Pull requests connected to your account. Pick the exact base and compare branches, with a live preview of the commits, the files and whether the branches merge cleanly. Set reviewers (people or teams), assignees, labels and a milestone, or open it as a draft. The branch is published for you if needed.
• PR list, details, checkout and merge. GitLab merge requests work too.
• Issues: list, read (Markdown), comment, assign, close or reopen, create, and start a branch from an issue
• Multiple GitHub accounts (including Enterprise) through gh, and GitLab accounts through tokens encrypted by the system keychain (macOS Keychain, Windows Data Protection API, Linux Secret Service)
• One-click SSH for each account: Nebula generates the key, adds a host alias to ~/.ssh/config, uploads the public key and checks the connection

Workspace

• One tab per repository; the + button opens a recent repository, clones from your accounts or a URL, or opens a folder
• Integrated terminal (`Ctrl+``): your real shell (zsh, bash, PowerShell…) running in the repository, with Nerd Font icons
• Resizable, collapsible side panels
• Light and dark themes that follow your system, a choice of accent colors, and WCAG AA text contrast

Install

Download the installer for your system from the latest release:

System	File
macOS (Apple silicon)	Nebula-<version>-mac-arm64.dmg
macOS (Intel)	Nebula-<version>-mac-x64.dmg
Windows 10/11	Nebula-<version>-win-x64.exe (installer) or .zip (portable)
Linux	.AppImage, .deb (Debian, Ubuntu) or .tar.gz

Nebula needs Git. The GitHub CLI is optional and enables the GitHub features.

The builds are not code-signed yet, so the first launch needs one extra step:

• macOS: right-click the app › Open, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Nebula.app.
• Windows: in the SmartScreen dialog, click More info › Run anyway.
• Linux (AppImage): chmod +x Nebula-*.AppImage, then run it.

Build from source

Requirements: Node.js 20 or later, Git and a C++ toolchain for the terminal module: the Xcode Command Line Tools on macOS (xcode-select --install), the "Desktop development with C++" workload of Visual Studio Build Tools on Windows, or build-essential and python3 on Linux.

git clone https://github.com/ryolay/nebula.git
cd nebula
npm install          # also builds the native terminal module for Electron
npm start            # run in development
npm run dist         # build installers for the current system into dist/

You can open a repository directly with npm start -- ~/code/my-repo.

Development

Command	What it does
npm start	Run the app
npm test	Every test: unit tests and end-to-end tests against the real app
npm run test:unit	Git backend, graph layout, identities, SSH, PRs, issues
npm run test:portable	The unit tests that run on Windows too
npm run test:e2e	Launch Electron on throwaway repositories and drive the UI
npm run lint	ESLint (the engine Codacy uses) plus a duplication check
npm run screenshots	Regenerate the images in docs/ from a demo repository
npm run dist	Build installers for the current system (dist:mac, dist:win, dist:linux)

CI runs on macOS, Windows and Linux for every pull request, and pushing a v* tag publishes installers for all three. The tests never touch your own configuration. They run on throwaway repositories (a bare origin plus clones) with an isolated Git config, and use fake gh and ssh binaries.

Architecture

src/
  main.js        Electron main process: window, menus, IPC
  preload.js     the narrow bridge the UI is allowed to call
  git.js         every Git operation (argument arrays only, no shell)
  accounts.js    GitHub (gh) and GitLab accounts, per-repo token routing
  identity.js    commit identities, folder rules, wrong-identity detection
  ssh.js         one-click SSH keys and ~/.ssh/config management
  gitlab.js      GitLab REST API
  terminal.js    node-pty sessions
  renderer/      the UI: plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript, no framework

The stack is Electron, node-pty and xterm.js. The UI has no framework and no build step.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md first, and report security issues privately as described in SECURITY.md.

License

MIT © 2026 Christian Da Silva Perez

Nebula is an independent project. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by GitKraken (Axosoft), GitHub or GitLab. All trademarks belong to their respective owners. The GitHub and GitLab logos appear only to identify those services. The bundled Symbols Nerd Font is MIT-licensed (see src/renderer/fonts/).