Products · Product
Magit
Raised as a usability problem by 74 people on Hacker News over 19 years (2008–2026), in 45 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Status screens take minutes to load in big repositoriesUnreviewed
20082026- Every operation takes about a minute on large Windows repos, locking up Emacs2024-02-16
- Status command takes seconds to show branch and dirty-tree info2021-04-08
- Status screens take minutes to load in big repositories2020-09-11
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Magit feels slow to interact with2026-10-28
- Refuses to check out a branch already checked out in another worktree, with no option offered2026-09-11
- Requires remembering many commands and Git concepts, hard for less experienced users2026-03-12
- Magit's own quirky UI never felt natural, so the commenter couldn't get comfortable with it2026-03-10
- Magit lacks quick commit move and squash commands, forcing a full interactive rebase2026-03-10
- Even with Magit, git remains confusing for the commenter2026-03-10
- UI refresh becomes slow when committing many generated files2025-10-22
- Magit was painfully slow to interact with on Windows2025-10-21
- Takes seconds to open after pressing C-x g, and sometimes hangs at 100% CPU2025-10-19
- Transient menus are uncomfortable and break elementary navigation like isearch and switching buffers2025-10-18
- Custom save-and-stage shortcut randomly stops working, feels clunky2025-05-29
- Popups appear in random subwindows too small to be usable2025-04-10
- Magit is slow because it makes many sequential queries to fetch data2024-12-03
- Package docs' keybindings don't match the Evil bindings, making them hard to remember2024-11-24
- Help popup lists keys that are wrong under evil mode bindings2024-08-13
- Couldn't get Magit installed in Emacs, gave up after half a day2024-05-27
- Created repo in an unexpected nested path, leading to a destructive cleanup mistake2024-05-21
- Magit is very slow, making Emacs feel slow to interact with2024-02-27
- Magit is too slow on Windows to use practically2024-02-18
- Every operation takes about a minute on large Windows repos, locking up Emacs2024-02-16
- Extremely slow on Windows, making it unusable for the commenter2023-12-02
- Modern Magit is harder to use and less intuitive than the original2023-09-08
- Magit is much slower on Windows than other git GUIs2023-09-08
- Magit is so slow on Windows that it becomes unusable2023-09-05
- Magit is slow on macOS because it relies heavily on slow git2023-08-03
- Emacs freezes for 30-120 seconds after Magit reports git finished2023-06-27
- Search results don't appear until the entire history is scanned, causing long waits2023-06-26
- Emacs freezes for 30-120 seconds after Magit reports git finished2023-06-26
- Spent half a day trying to figure out how to install it, then gave up2023-06-26
- Magit's UI is slower to navigate than the command line for this user2023-06-26
- Magit commands take a couple of seconds on Windows versus under a second on Linux2023-03-03
- Every command takes 1 to 2 seconds to respond, breaking workflow2023-02-27
- Blocks the whole Emacs for seconds, so no typing or scrolling until it finishes2023-02-27
- Magit is slow to respond on Windows2023-02-26
- Pressing RET on a branch shows its HEAD commit instead of switching to it, leaving a detached HEAD2023-02-26
- Emacs gets stuck, minibuffer can't be closed and commands don't respond2023-02-26
- Landing page doesn't explain what Magit is, leaving visitors confused2023-02-26
- Feels like constantly waiting on Windows, far slower than git CLI2023-02-26
- Magit is unusable on Windows for the commenter2023-02-26
- Steep learning curve, especially for those who must also learn Emacs2022-09-02
- Can't find how to push or pull; only fetch is obvious2021-10-22
- Hard to get started; confusing documentation and steep learning curve requiring Emacs2021-10-22
- Browsing history and blame views is slow and wastes screen space compared to Tig2021-10-22
- Manual's launch keystroke does nothing; no clear way to start it2021-10-22
- Commenter couldn't find a clear happy path and never got on with it2021-10-22
- Commenter never figured out how the rebase flow works in Magit2021-10-22
- Commenter couldn't find a satisfying way into the interface at first2021-10-22
- Couldn't figure out how to operate the rebase screen from what was shown2021-10-22
- Defaults assume file-level operations, and hotkeys take research to get things done2021-10-22
- Hard to resolve merge conflicts, requires learning unfamiliar diff views2021-10-22