Am I the only one who remembers when $70 was cheap for anything development related? Either it's good enough to save you 5-10 minutes a day where it's obviously worth $70 or it's not, and isn't worth any price (well maybe a dollar or two if you are, say, a collector of git clients).

Somehow new generations of developers want all their tools for free, but expect to get money for their work.

Strange profession, when compared how much some of other professionals pay for their tools.

Exactly. I have a Bosch drill and I recently had a carpenter trying to convince me that I should have spent three times as much on a Makita. He was basically trying to show me that the cheaper drill was a false economy. Its hilarious in software how much time we waste dealing with poor tools. Some free tools are excellent but in many cases spending some money will save you so much time and effort, enabling you to make more money and giving some of that to the developers. Wins all round.

Why is it strange? Lots developers who write free software get paid for their work.

Only in areas where software is not the main product.

How did you come up with that?

Mozilla is a clear example of people paid to write FLOSS. I used to work at a foundation that did that too. There's plenty going around.

Mozilla is a clear example of a software that isn't the product being sold.

The product being sold is the service to access online web sites, sell search data to engines and online advertising.

The problem isn't the cost in money, it's the cost in time and inconvenience. It sort of manifests in two ways. First, I build my professional workflow around a tool that can simply cease to exist in a few days/weeks/months/years...it puts me at the mercy of the maker of the tool, often needlessly. Second, software that costs money tends to be closed source, which is at odds with community efforts that can improve and shape the software over time, as well as maintain it should the original developer move on. So those issues are the problem, not the $70.

I disagree as all of those problems exist with SourceTree as well, which is what the parent was comparing it to.

Agreed.

Is this an argument against my point? I'm not unwilling to pay for a tool -- I've even paid for Sublime which is free unless you choose to pay. Is there a reason I should feel compelled to pay for a tool, given a comparable free alternative?

> Am I the only one who remembers when $70 was cheap for anything development related?

That's more than what I've spend of software (excluding videogames) in the last decade, probably more. It's also more than a weekly rent for me too.

Yeah, if it saves me time/work I'll gladly pay $70.

SourceTree is a god awful nightmare of a UI and I have found myself having to triple check all the checkboxes present before I do anything lest I manage to hose it up. I would use absolutely no GUI if my option was that or SourceTree. I also hear the latest update has been a real punch to the gut for people as well.

I branch and merge in moments at least a half dozen times a day in Tower. Getting to diffs, creating patches, and viewing changesets are easy and pleasant to look at. It has built I support for a Gitflow workflow so naming conventions and everything allow for one or two clicks to go from no feature branch to a new one.

Frankly, it's just pleasant to use, doesn't screw up my source, and makes it easy to get my code committed and pushed.

> It has built I support for a Gitflow workflow

So does SourceTree. Have you tried using it? If so, what issues have you found with it? Personally, I don't use it, so I can't speak to its functionality.

> I branch and merge in moments at least a half dozen times a day in Tower.

I do the same in SourceTree, and find it trivial, but perhaps it's just a usage difference. If you want to use Tower go for it -- I have no affiliation with Atlassian to push the product on you, I just enjoy it. I'm just surprised at how much Tower costs.

It's funny because I generally regard Atlassian products as at the worst, not bad. That is to say, I don't feel like anything they do sucks, some things I really like, some things I'm meh about. Except SourceTree. Maybe because I'd been using Tower for nearly a year by the time I came across SourceTree. Maybe because it's such a Windows feeling application. I don't know. I'm sure most of my dislike is illogical at this point, but it still is there.

I don't feel like $70 is very much for something that feeds my family. I use it all day every day and the work I do with it allows my wife to stay home with my kids. If people didn't pay me to build the software that _I_ build, this wouldn't be possible. It's the same reason I choose IntelliJ over Eclipse or other IDEs. If the price difference is justified by my effctiveness with your tool, I'm spending the money without hesitation.

The only caveat I have is, even if your product is the best, if your company is shifty or a bad actor- I'll do whatever I can to avoid it.

> What does that offer over, say SourceTree, Atlassian's free offering.

An intuitive interface and a simpler layout. I like Tower better for the same reason I like to use a trackpad over a mouse. Day to day, the difference is obvious and positively impacts my performance.

SourceTree has hosed numerous co-workers repositories because they clicked the wrong option. I'm not a fan in the slightest.

Really? Both you and another commenter said as much, but I've never seen this problem, or known anyone who experienced that across probably a dozen people I've worked with over the span of three (?) years. I'm actually not even sure what options you could use that would cause that. Do you have examples?

SourceTree's latest update makes you login to an Atlassian account just to be able to use the app. That has been a deal-breaker for an otherwise great app.

They are very similar. Tower has less of git's features as well when compared to SourceTree. It is though much much faster and definitely more stable.

Much like GitKraken, the site is completely unhelpful and doesn't have any screenshots. Why would I download, much less pay for, a piece of software which I haven't even seen?

There's a link to the screenshots at the bottom of the page.

http://www.gitkraken.com/screenshots

What are you even talking about? Both sites have screenshots of their product...