Here are 5 free Android GitHub clients to use GitHub on Android. From these free Android GitHub clients, you can manage your GitHub profile and see repositories created by you. You can also see GitHub repositories created by other users and their profiles. Some of the GitHub Android apps that I have included in this article will even let you create GitHub repositories issues and manage them. You can also manage GitHub Gists with these Android Github clients. Another good aspect of these GitHub clients for Android is that you can browser GitHub repositories code with it and some of the GitHub Android apps also give you the option to download the source code as a ZIP file. In short, you do most of the GitHub activities like creating new issues, reply to issues, create new Gists, etc from these Android apps for GitHub.
Do not worry, if you are an iPhone user as you can check out NapCat- a free GitHub client for iPhone. And, stay tuned for my next article in which I will introduce you to more iPhone GitHub clients.
ModernHub for GitHub:
ModernHub for GitHub is a free Android GitHub client to access your GitHub account right on your smartphone. From this GitHub client for Android, you can view GitHub events history, star and fork repositories, read code files within the app interface itself, etc. You can also view your gists, starred gists, and gists from other users. In addition to these basic features, you can also easily view and manage issues on it. It gives you the option to view issues and create new issues on a GitHub repository. I am also impressed by its user interface as it makes it easier to use GitHub on Android. After installing this app, log in with your GitHub credentials to view repositories and manage issues. To view your repositories, you have to select the Home option from its menu. The app will then show you the GitHub news, you can swipe through its different screens to view repositories, followers, and following. To manage issues open its Issue Dashboard. From its issue dashboard, you can view issues related to watched, assigned, created, and mentioned repositories. If you want to fork a repository then open a repository and select the Fork option from its 3 dot-button menu. As I mentioned, you can also view your Gists and other GitHub users Gists. Select the Gist option from its menu and then the app will show your Gists, starred Gist, and Gists from other users. The only option missing is that you can’t download the source code as in most of the other GitHub clients in this article.
OctoDroid for GitHub:
OctoDroid for GitHub is another free GitHub Android client. From this Android GitHub client, you can view and manage your GitHub profile, see trending GitHub repositories, view issues, pull requests, and gists, etc. What separates it from rest of the Android GitHub clients on my list is that it gives you the option to filter repositories, issues, and sort pull requests. You can filter repositories as per the owner, member, public, private, watched, and other filters. This allows you to quickly view a specific GitHub repository. While viewing a repository, you can read the code files as well. You can also download the source code of the repository as a ZIP file on your phone. In addition to this fantastic feature, you can also bookmark a repository, add it to the watch list, and star repositories.
Through this GitHub Android client, you can also view and comment on issues created by you, assigned, and issues in which you are mentioned. The best part is that you can also create new issues from it and comment on issues created earlier. Just like GitHub repositories, you can sort GitHub issues as well. You can choose to view the oldest, newest, most recently updated, least recently updated, most commented, and least commented issues first. Another handy feature of this Android GitHub app is to quickly filter issues and spot a specific issue from the crowd to address first. In the same way, you can manage your pull requests from this GitHub client for Android. You can view created, assigned, and mentioned pull request and choose to view oldest, newest, most commented, etc first.
You can also explore GitHub on it. It can show you the most trending GitHub repositories of the current day, week, and a month. From this, you can also access the public timeline which displays public events on GitHub. You can also stay updated with all GitHub news from the GitHub blog which you can read from this app itself. The app also gives you some customization options such as you can set the start page of the app to see GitHub repositories, issues, pull requests, trending repos, etc. You can also set the text size of the code from smallest to largest. If you don’t like the default light theme, then you can change it to the dark theme from the app preferences. Undoubtedly, OctoDroid is one of the best Android GitHub clients as compared to other GitHub clients in this article. You should definitely check it out :)
ForkHub for GitHub:
ForkHub for GitHub is another third party GitHub client for Android. The app is open source and you can check out its GitHub repo from here. It is also quite similar in functionality as compared to the previous GitHub Android client except that you can’t download the source code from a repository. Apart from that, you can access your GitHub account and manage repos, issues, gists, etc without any problem. You can view your repositories and other GitHub users repositories. It also lets you start and fork a repository. You can also view contributors of a GitHub repo from it. As I mentioned, you can also manage issues from it. The app displays issues created by you, assigned issues and mentioned issues. You can create a new issue from the app. To create a new issue, open a repository and then switch to the Issues tab of that GitHub repo. Now, tap on the “+” button on top of its interface. You will now see a form in which you can specify the issue. At last, tap on the button at the top-right part of the screen to create a new issue. It also lets you manage Gists and you can even create a new Gist from it. To create a new Gist, select the Gists option from its menu and then tap on the + button. After that, you can either create a public or private Gist. The interface of ForkHub is quite smooth and makes it easier to work on GitHub from your Android smartphone. I will say that it is another good GitHub client to check out.
PocketHub for GitHub:
PocketHub for GitHub is another Android GitHub client. As compared to other Android GitHub clients on my list, it offers the same basic functionalities like managing issues and gists. You can view other user’s profile and repositories. It lets you star a repository and fork it. In addition to this, it can also render the GitHub repo code for you. However, there is no any option to download the source code as in some other GitHub Android apps in this article. In terms of user interface, I found this app quite similar to ForHub and it offers the same set of options as well. However, you can’t download the source code from it as in ForHub for GitHub app. Apart from that, you can manage and view issues from its Issue dashboard. To raise a new issue, open a GitHub repo, switch to the Issues tab, and then tap on the “+” button. After that, you can define or specify the issue. You can also comment on issues from this app. As I mentioned, you can also view and manage Gists from it. Just like OctoDroid, you can also use it create a new Gist on GitHub. Check it out from the link above.
Check out its GitHub repository.
GitNav for GitHub:
GitNav for GitHub is another Android GitHub client. From this GitHub Android app, you can view your GitHub repositories and other users GitHub repositories. Apart from that, you can just view issues on it and there is no option available for replying to a GitHub issue or create a new GitHub issue in a repository as in most of the other Android GitHub clients on my list. In addition to these basic GitHub activities, you can also view all of your Gists from it. It can also render the code files of a GitHub repo for you. However, there is no any option to change the font size of the rendered code or download the source code as a ZIP file.
Check out its GitHub repository.
Closing Words:
In this article, I introduced you to 5 free Android GitHub clients. These Android GitHub clients will let you perform most of the GitHub tasks from your Android phone like view and manage issues, pull requests, Gists, repositories, etc. Most importantly, you can browse the code of different repositories with ease. And interestingly, most of the GitHub Android clients are themselves open sourced. Based on my testing of these Android GitHub clients, I will recommend you to check out OctoDroid and ForkHub as you can also download the source code as a ZIP file. Apart from that, other Android GitHub clients offer the same functionalities and are equally efficient.
