What Is GitHub? Git Hosting and Collaboration Explained
SkillVeris Team
Engineering Team

GitHub is a web-based platform that hosts Git repositories in the cloud and adds collaboration features on top of Git, such as pull requests, issues, and code review.
In this guide, you'll learn:
- Git and GitHub are different things: Git is the underlying version control system, while GitHub is one company's hosted service built around it.
- A repository on GitHub stores a project's full history of changes, letting anyone go back to any previous version at any time.
- Pull requests are how most teams propose, review, and merge code changes, turning every contribution into a discussion before it reaches the main codebase.
- Branches let multiple people work on different features simultaneously without their unfinished changes interfering with each other.
1What Is GitHub?
GitHub is a web-based platform that hosts Git repositories in the cloud and layers collaboration tools on top of them, including pull requests, issue tracking, and code review, so teams can work on the same codebase without emailing files back and forth.
It is the most widely used platform of its kind, hosting both open-source projects that anyone can contribute to and private repositories used internally by companies of every size.
2Git Versus GitHub: What's the Difference?
Git and GitHub are frequently confused, but they are different things. Git is the underlying version control system that runs locally on your machine, tracking every change to a project's files over time.
GitHub is a separate, hosted service built around Git that stores repositories online, adds a web interface, and provides collaboration tools that Git itself does not include. You can use Git without ever touching GitHub, but GitHub would not exist without Git underneath it.
3Repositories, Commits, and History
A repository on GitHub stores a project's complete history of changes, called commits, each recording exactly what was added, changed, or removed at a specific point in time.
Because every commit is preserved, anyone with access to the repository can view the entire evolution of the project, compare any two points in time, or revert to a previous version if a recent change introduced a problem.
4Branches and Pull Requests
Branches let multiple people work on different features or fixes at the same time without their unfinished, potentially unstable changes interfering with the main version of the code.
A pull request is the mechanism for bringing a branch's changes back into the main codebase. It opens a dedicated space for reviewers to comment on specific lines, request changes, and discuss the work before it is merged.
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5Issues and Project Management
Beyond hosting code, GitHub includes issue tracking for logging bugs, feature requests, and tasks, along with lightweight project boards for organizing that work visually.
Issues can be linked directly to the pull requests that resolve them, which gives a project a clear, connected history between what was requested, discussed, and ultimately shipped.
6GitHub Actions and Automation
GitHub Actions extends the platform beyond storing and reviewing code into running automated workflows, most commonly building, testing, and deploying an application every time new code is pushed.
This turns GitHub into more than a code archive: it becomes the trigger point for an entire release pipeline, so a passing check next to a commit is direct evidence the code builds and its tests pass.
7Why Teams Rely on GitHub for Collaboration
Distributed teams depend on GitHub because it gives every contributor a shared, always-available source of truth for the codebase, with a full audit trail of who changed what and why.
Open-source maintainers rely on the same features to accept contributions from strangers around the world safely, since a pull request can be reviewed and tested thoroughly before it ever touches the main branch.
8Getting Started with GitHub
Creating a free GitHub account and pushing an existing project, or starting a brand new repository, is the fastest way to become comfortable with the platform's core workflow.
From there, practicing the branch and pull request cycle on a personal project builds the exact habits used on real engineering teams. The programming topics and interview question sets on SkillVeris cover Git and GitHub workflows in more depth for anyone preparing for a development role.
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About the Publisher
SkillVeris Team
Engineering Team
Our engineering writers turn abstract code concepts into hands-on, project-driven learning experiences.
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