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GitCity vs thegitcity.com — They Are Completely Different Products

A note on origins: I discovered thegitcity.com by Samuel Rizzon while GitCity was taking shape, and it was genuinely impressive. But the more I looked at it, the more I realised I wanted to build something different — a personal tool, not a social network. The concept of "GitHub as a city" also isn't new (honzaap's GithubCity predates both). What GitCity does with your own contribution history, driveable simulation, and README embeds is something neither project does. This document exists to make that distinction clear.

What thegitcity.com does

  • Every GitHub user becomes one building in a shared global city
  • Building height = total contribution count of that user
  • It's a social network — you explore other developers' buildings
  • You fly through a city where each building = one person
  • Paid customisation: crowns, auras, roof effects
  • Requires an account

What GitCity (gitcity.natrajx.in) does

GitCity visualises your own contribution history across three completely different views:

Panel 1 — 3D Isometric Skyline

  • Your 365 days of contributions rendered as an isometric 3D city
  • Each day = one building. Height = commits on that day
  • Click any building to see the exact date and commit count
  • 6 themes, year/month/week filters
  • Embeds in any GitHub README as a live SVG

Panel 2 — Bird's Eye Heatmap

  • Classic GitHub-style contribution grid
  • Same data, different visual — flat tile heatmap
  • Good for comparing years side by side

Panel 3 — City Simulation (Three.js)

  • A driveable 3D city built entirely from your real commit data
  • Each day you committed = one building in the city
  • Drive your car through streets built from your own history
  • AI traffic, pedestrians, airplane, day/night mode
  • The more active your commit history, the denser the city

Side-by-side comparison

Feature GitCity (ours) thegitcity.com
What each building represents One day of your commits One GitHub user
Purpose Visualise your personal history Explore a social city of developers
Views 3D Skyline + Heatmap + Simulation Single 3D city
Driveable simulation ✅ Yes — drive through your own data ❌ No
README embed ✅ One-line SVG API ❌ No
Account required ❌ Username only ✅ Yes
All-years history ✅ Every year since joining ❌ No
Open source license ✅ MIT — do anything AGPL-3.0 — deploy = share source
Self-hostable freely ✅ Yes ❌ AGPL restricts this
Monetisation Free Paid items ($1–3)

Summary

thegitcity.com = a social city where you are a building among thousands of other developers.

GitCity = your entire contribution history becomes a city that only you live in — and you can drive through it.

Same name, completely different concept. One is a social network. The other is a personal developer tool.

Prior art — this concept is older than both projects

It's worth noting that the idea of visualising GitHub contributions as a 3D city isn't new to either project. honzaap's GithubCity did this years before both GitCity and thegitcity.com. The concept is an open idea that multiple developers have explored independently, each with a different take. GitCity's take is: personal, embeddable, driveable, and free.

Embed your skyline (something thegitcity.com cannot do)

[![My GitCity Skyline](https://gitcity.natrajx.in/api/svg?u=YOUR_USERNAME)](https://gitcity.natrajx.in/YOUR_USERNAME)

Built by Natraj X · gitcity.natrajx.in · MIT License