Git Rebase vs. Merge: A Practical Guide

merge and rebase solve the same problem — combining work from two branches — but they shape your history very differently. Here’s how to choose.

The one-sentence summary

Merge preserves history exactly as it happened. Rebase rewrites history to look like work happened in a straight line. Neither is “correct”; they’re tools for different goals.

How merge works

A merge takes the tips of two branches and ties them together with a new merge commit:

git checkout main
git merge feature

Your history keeps every commit and shows the branch points. This is honest and non-destructive, but busy projects end up with a tangled graph.

How rebase works

A rebase replays your branch’s commits on top of another branch, one at a time:

git checkout feature
git rebase main

The result is a linear history that reads like a story. The catch: it creates new commits with new hashes.

The golden rule of rebasing

Never rebase commits that other people have already pulled. Rewriting shared history forces everyone else into a painful recovery. Rebase your local, un-pushed work freely; leave shared branches alone.

A workflow that works for most teams

1. Develop on a feature branch.
2. Before opening a pull request, git rebase main to get a clean, current branch.
3. Merge the PR into main using a merge commit (or squash) so main has a clear record of when features landed.

This gives you tidy feature branches and a truthful main history.

Quick reference

• Cleaning up your own local commits? Rebase.
• Integrating a finished feature into a shared branch? Merge.
• Already pushed and shared the branch? Don’t rebase it.

Master both and you’ll spend far less time fighting your version control.