One. Million. That’s a lot of anything! Can you imagine… One million puppies?! One million lines of code?! Or even better… One million developers using GitKraken?! Yes, you read that right. The GitKraken Git Client and Glo Boards just reached an incredible milestone of 1,000,000 users!

Thank you to all of our users and customers who made this possible! Let’s get nostalgic and reflect on our journey together to reach one million. A lot has happened in the 4+ years it took to get to this point…

The Big Idea

Each year, Axosoft gives our developers a chance to learn new technologies and explore new ideas by engaging in 30-day experimental projects. As a result, we’ve come up with some pretty amazing projects, like GitKraken Bisect, CodeCapitan, and you can probably guess where this is going…

On a scorching Arizona summer evening in 2014, two devs got crackin’ on an idea that would change the Git world forever. It was a prototype for a cross-platform, graphical user interface for Git, and after showing it to the rest of the team, the energy and excitement in the room were near palpable. We doubled down on this project, which quickly became known as GitKraken!

And in July 2015, it went into private beta. After that, we started “pushing” it out to more engineers. Get it?! Pushing! Gotta cherry-pick that joke for later…. Okay, my Git jokes are done!

V1.0 Unleashed

In March 2016, you could hear the engineers yell “RELEASE THE KRAKEN!” as we unleashed version 1.0 to production.

If you follow us on social media, you likely saw the photos from the GitKraken launch party where the team celebrated with a fun run, and of course, beers afterward.

In v1.0 we focused on improving the overall reliability and experience for our current users before expanding to a larger audience. From there, GitKraken went into a rapid release cycle with features and fixes being rolled out nearly every 2 weeks. Users were then—just as much as they are now—sharing feedback, feature requests, and issues they experienced. So naturally, GitKraken kept getting better.

Our First GitKraken Pro User

As is the case with all successful products, we needed to offset some of the development costs required to continue momentum on this promising tool. That’s why we released v1.5 in July of 2016 with a paid-for Pro version, which included new features such as our in-app merge conflict output editor and multiple profiles.

I was not sure what to expect with this release and announcement of the paid version. I was so excited when we got our first GitKraken Pro purchase. Thanks again, Eli!

It hasn’t been revealed yet in this blog post, but I am the sales manager here at Axosoft. You know what’s so great about my job? Our users love GitKraken. This makes my job in sales a true pleasure, and dare I say it? Easier! No hang-ups when I call. No “remove me from your list.” Heck, the product practically sells itself.

There is no feeling quite like opening my inbox and having messages from teams wanting to add users or asking questions about Enterprise system requirements. We are motivated by all of your compliments, thoughtful questions, and your shared passion for building great software.

Surprise, Enterprise!

It’s the start of 2017. Keif is almost 3 now, and GitKraken is spreading like wildfire. We were starting to get questions from large organizations such as, “How can I use GitKraken on my company’s private network, behind a secure firewall?” and “How can I manage my user authentication locally?”. As these requests started to roll in more frequently, we knew it was time to build a solution for these needs.

Fast-forward to July 2017. GitKraken Enterprise was developed and released in just a few short months. Shout out to our awesome dev team! Now, companies can work with GitKraken behind a firewall, update versions on their IT schedule, and manage users locally.

Software With A Personality

Between each milestone, there are countless activities driving us towards the next. As a salesperson, I’m always working with our marketing team to help developers discover GitKraken, and to show them the value. Conferences are a great way to spread awareness and speak with our current and prospective users in-person.

These events give us a chance to show how we really empower our users:

• With a product that is powerful and free for a majority of our users.
• With an incredible knowledge base of articles, videos, documentation, and talks.
• With timely support from our incredible customer success team.

And lastly… With personality, passion and lots of fun!

Our mascot Keif is a versatile Kraken, and our marketing team puts just as much love into our brand as our developers do into the product. And it seems to be working! I witnessed the love for Keif first-hand at the GitHub Universe conference in October 2017. Check out some of my favorite fan photos with our art installation:

• 

• 

• 

• 

#GitGloing with Glo Boards

If we speed up the time machine to March 2018, that’s when our new product, GitKraken Glo, came onto the scene. Glo Boards are the legendary issue and task tracking boards for developers. Just like the Git client, I have witnessed this product evolve from ideation to execution, and I am truly impressed at the rate in which these have been developed and adopted.

Born from the minds of Axosoft developers with 15+ years experience in building project management tools, they saw the need for a lightweight and super-fast issue tracking board. Like the Eiffel Tower, Glo Boards were built from the ground up avec amour (with love)!

While Glo is developer-centric, it’s easy and intuitive for non-technical folks, too. For example, I’ve seen a developer using Glo in VS Code (yes, that’s a thing!) and their Product Owner logged into the same Glo board via a web browser to collaborate with the developer about an issue. I know, pinch you, you’re dreaming, right?!

From the Silicon Desert to Silicon Valley

As I write this in mid-2018, Keif’s tentacles stretch from our HQ in Scottsdale, Arizona, to our new, office in San Francisco.

Want to join Keif and the GitKraken team and contribute to our next 1,000,000-user milestone? We’re hiring for both of our offices!

Thank YOU!

Thanks for taking this journey with me down memory lane. We wouldn’t be where we are today without the dedicated teams who build and support GitKraken, and we certainly wouldn’t be here without our awesome users, like you!