Git Merge vs Rebase — What's the Difference?

git merge combines two branches by creating a new merge commit that has both branches as parents, preserving the exact history of both. git rebase instead replays your branch's commits one by one on top of another branch, producing a linear history without a merge commit.

Common causes

• Teams disagree on whether preserving the exact chronological/branching history (merge) or a clean, linear history (rebase) is more valuable for readability and bisecting

How to fix it

• Use git merge when working on a shared branch, or when you want an accurate record of when and how branches diverged and combined
• Use git rebase to clean up your own local feature branch before opening a pull request, giving reviewers a simple linear diff
• Never rebase commits that have already been pushed and pulled by others — since rebase rewrites commit hashes, it causes the same shared-history problems as git reset

Example

# Merge: preserves both histories, adds a merge commit
git checkout main
git merge feature-branch

# Rebase: replays feature-branch commits onto main's tip
git checkout feature-branch
git rebase main

FAQ

Is rebase 'better' than merge?

Neither is universally better — it's a tradeoff between a linear, easy-to-read history (rebase) and an accurate, non-destructive record of history (merge). Many teams rebase local feature branches but merge into shared branches.