Git Commit vs Push: What's the Difference?

The short answer: A commit saves a batch of your code changes as a snapshot on your own computer. A push uploads those saved commits to GitHub so other people can see them. You always commit first, then push. Commit is "save it"; push is "send it."

That's the whole idea in one line. Here's the slightly longer version, with no jargon assumed.

The one-sentence difference

A commit records your changes locally. A push shares them.

When you commit, nothing leaves your computer. You're just saving a labeled snapshot of your work to your own local copy of the project. When you push, you take those local commits and upload them to GitHub (or wherever the project is hosted online), where teammates can see and download them.

So commit and push aren't competing options. They're two steps in the same workflow: you commit your work, then you push it.

A simple analogy

Imagine you're writing chapters of a book on your laptop.

Every time you finish a chapter, you save it with a note: "Chapter 3 done." That's a commit. The saved version lives on your laptop, with a clear label, and you can have several of these stacked up.

At the end of the day, you email all your finished chapters to your editor so they can read them. That's a push. Now your work is off your laptop and in someone else's hands.

You can save (commit) ten chapters and only email (push) them once at the end. The saving and the sending are separate actions, which is exactly how Git works.

What actually happens when you commit

When you make a commit, Git takes the changes you've made and stores them as a permanent snapshot in your local project history, along with a short message describing what changed.

Crucially, this is all local. It happens on your machine, and it works even with no internet connection. You can make many commits in a row, building up a little stack of saved changes, none of which anyone else can see yet.

This is why developers often commit frequently throughout the day. Each commit is a checkpoint they can return to, and committing costs nothing because it's just saving locally.

What actually happens when you push

When you push, Git takes the commits you've built up locally and uploads them to the remote copy of the project, the version hosted on GitHub.

Once pushed, your commits are visible to everyone with access to that project. Teammates can pull them down, review them, and build on them. Pushing requires an internet connection, because you're sending data to a server.

So a push is the moment your work goes public to your team. Before the push, your commits are private to you. After it, they're shared.

Why they're two separate steps

It might seem simpler if saving and sharing were one action. But keeping them separate is actually useful.

It lets you work offline. You can commit all day on a plane with no wifi, then push everything once you reconnect.

It lets you tidy up before sharing. You can make several rough commits, review them, and only push when the work is at a point worth showing others.

And it keeps the shared project stable. Because pushing is deliberate, you don't accidentally broadcast half-finished work to your whole team every time you save.

The typical workflow

In practice, a developer's day looks roughly like this. They make some changes to the code. They commit those changes with a message. They make more changes and commit again. They repeat that a few times. Then, when they're ready to share, they push all those commits to GitHub at once.

Put simply: commit often, push when ready.

A quick note if you're not a developer

If you landed here because you manage developers rather than write code yourself, here's the practical takeaway: a "push" is the moment your developer's work actually shows up on GitHub for you to see. Commits made but not yet pushed are still sitting on the developer's own machine, invisible to you.

So if you're checking GitHub and not seeing recent activity, it doesn't always mean no work happened. It can mean the work is committed locally but not yet pushed. That's worth knowing before you assume the worst.

If your real goal is understanding what your developers are actually building, reading raw commits only gets you so far. We wrote a separate, founder-focused guide on how to understand GitHub commits in plain English that covers translating developer activity into updates you can actually use.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between git commit and git push? A commit saves your changes as a snapshot on your local machine. A push uploads those committed changes to GitHub so others can access them. You commit first, then push.

Do I have to commit before I push? Yes. A push only sends commits, so there must be at least one commit to push. You cannot push uncommitted changes.

Can I commit without pushing? Yes. Commits are local, so you can make as many as you like without pushing. They simply stay on your computer until you push them.

Can I push multiple commits at once? Yes. If you've made several commits since your last push, a single push uploads all of them together.

Does committing require internet? No. Committing is local and works offline. Pushing requires an internet connection because it uploads to a remote server.

What is the opposite of push? Pulling. A push uploads your commits to GitHub; a pull downloads other people's commits from GitHub to your machine.