Limit on number of git branches

user1778366 picture user1778366 · Oct 27, 2012 · Viewed 12.2k times · Source

I am musing about building a big system on top of git for various reasons but mainly convenience.

But as part of the implementation I would end up making millions of branches and branching and merging between them. Can git actually scale this way? I always hear "Branches are free" but I have to wonder if this is really true x1,000,000? Can git actually create a theoretical unlimited number of branches?

Answer

FelipeC picture FelipeC · Oct 27, 2012

Yes, branches are free. Branching and merging is very easy.

The scalability issues mentioned before comes only when synchronizing a vast amount of branches through the network (git fetch, git pull, git push). Locally you shouldn't have any problem.