At a high level, GitHub is a website and cloud-based service that helps developers store and manage their code, as well as track and control changes to their code. To understand exactly what GitHub is, you need to know two connected principles:

• Version control.
• Git.

1. Version control helps developers track and manage changes to a software project’s code. As a software project grows, version control becomes essential.
2. Git is a specific open-source version control system created by Linus Torvalds in 2005. Specifically, Git is a distributed version control system, which means that the entire codebase and history is available on every developer’s computer, which allows for easy branching and merging. According to a Stack Overflow developer survey, over 87% of developers use Git.

GitHub is a for-profit company that offers a cloud-based Git repository hosting service. Essentially, it makes it a lot easier for individuals and teams to use Git for version control and collaboration. GitHub’s interface is user-friendly enough so even novice coders can take advantage of Git. Without GitHub, using Git generally requires a bit more technical savvy and use of the command line. GitHub is so user-friendly, though, that some people even use GitHub to manage other types of projects – like writing books.