In this blog, I am going to explain the difference between Git Pull and Git Fetch Commands. This detailed blog will cover the following topics as follows
- Introduction
- What is Git Pull?
- What is Git Fetch?
- Difference between Git Pull and Git Fetch Commands
- Conclusion
Git is a free and open-source distributed version control system that can handle small to very large projects quickly and effectively. Git is nothing without its commands. It has many useful commands that can help developers maintain their codebase. Some of them are very confusing among developers. Like Git Fetch and Git Pull, which are used on a regular basis, but sometimes developers get confused about when to use pull and fetch. So, let’s start looking at their difference.
What is Git Pull?
The "git pull" command allows you to fetch the latest changes from a remote repository and automatically merge them into your current working directory. It is the combination of "git fetch" and "git merge".
Scenario: Git Pull can be used when a developer wants to quickly get the latest changes from a remote branch to their local working directory and ensure that there will be no conflicts.
Syntax
#Pull changes from the remote repository and merge them into the local working directory
git pull origin <branch name>
Key Points
- The "git pull" command is a combination of two other Git commands: git fetch and git merge.
- If there are conflicts between our local and remote branches, it may result in merge conflicts.
- Useful in collaborative environments where frequent synchronization with a remote branch is required.
- This is ideal for quick updates when the developer is confident that the latest change will not cause any conflicts.
What is Git Fetch?
The “git fetch” command is used to fetch the latest changes from a remote repository to your local repository, but it does not automatically merge or apply these changes to your local working directory/branch. Only your local references to remote branches are updated. The "git merge" or "git rebase" commands are then used to merge these changes into the local working directory/branch.
Scenario: When a developer wants to check what changes are available in a remote repository without immediately merging them into their local working branch, they can use Git Fetch.
Syntax
#Fetch all changes from remote repository
git fetch origin
Key Points
- Conflicts are quite rare when using Git Fetch Command.
- This command does not affect your local working directory.
- This allows you to see what others have committed before merging the changes into your local working directory.
- This allows you to review changes from the remote repository without immediately pulling the updates into your local working directory.
Difference between Git Pull and Git Fetch Commands
Git Pull and Git Fetch commands are often confusing for both beginners and experienced developers, but they serve different purposes. Now, let's look at the difference between git pull and git fetch.
![]()
| Key Points |
Git Pull |
Git Fetch |
| Functionality |
Fetch the latest changes from the remote repository and merge them into your current working directory. |
Only fetch the latest changes from the remote repository and send them to your local repository. |
| Command |
git pull origin <branch name> |
git fetch origin |
| Risk of Conflict |
The chance of conflicts is quite high when using Git Pull. |
Conflicts are quite rare when using Git Fetch. |
| Review |
Immediately update changes to the local repository. |
Upcoming changes can be reviewed. |
| Effects on the local working directory |
Updates the local working directory with the new commits from the remote branch |
This command does not affect your local working directory. |
| Safety |
Using "git pull" has the risk of conflicts. |
Using "git fetch" can be considered safer. |
See you in the next blog, till then, take care and be happy learning.
You may also visit my other blog on DevOps: Git vs SVN: What's the difference
You can connect with me @
Conclusion
In this blog, we have discussed the basic difference between Git Pull and Git Fetch.
I hope you enjoyed this blog. Follow C# Corner to learn more new and amazing things about DevOps.
Thanks for reading.