Feature Request: Visual network graph for all branches (like Bitbucket)

[navxga]

Currently, GitHub only shows the graph for the current branch or specific forks, but it would be very helpful to see a global view of all active branches at once to track team progress.

pleeeeasee

I know GitHub already has a built-in feature for this under Insights > Network, but it expands horizontally, and since it only updates once a day, it becomes highly unproductive for daily development workflows.

It would be perfect if there was a native "Commits" tab right in the repository main view showing a vertical, real-time graph of all commits across all branches.

OBS: And for anyone who came here looking for a workaround to do this right now: besides the Insights > Network tab, you can also run the git log --graph --oneline --all command in your terminal to instantly visualize the graphical history of all your local and remote branches.

What do you guys think? Give this an upvote if you believe this feature should be added to GitHub. Let's get the community moving! 🚀

[Brando-1510]

I completely support this suggestion. 👍

One aspect that I think deserves more attention is how much context is lost when working with repositories that have multiple active branches.

Today, if I want to understand what is happening across the project, I usually have to switch between:

• The commits page.
• The branches page.
• Pull Requests.
• Insights → Network.
• Or even my local terminal using git log --graph --oneline --all.

Each of those tools is useful, but none of them provides a simple, real-time overview of the repository's development activity.

A vertical commit graph that aggregates commits from every active branch would make several common workflows much easier:

• 👀 Instantly see where development is happening without checking branches one by one.
• 🌱 Detect abandoned or stale branches before they become difficult to merge.
• 🔀 Visualize branch divergence and convergence naturally.
• 🤝 Help reviewers understand how different features are progressing before opening a Pull Request.
• 🚀 Give project maintainers a live snapshot of the repository's overall activity.
• 📈 Make onboarding easier for new contributors by helping them understand the project's current development flow.

The current Insights → Network graph is useful, but it feels more like an analysis tool than a day-to-day development tool. It is also horizontally oriented and doesn't update frequently enough to be useful during active development.

I also like the fact that this proposal doesn't necessarily require a completely new feature. Even an optional toggle such as:

Show commits from all branches

on the existing Commits page could provide most of the value while keeping the interface clean and familiar.

Another idea could be adding filters such as:

• Show only active branches.
• Hide merged branches.
• Filter by author.
• Filter by time range (today, last 7 days, last month).
• Highlight merge commits.
• Collapse inactive branches to reduce visual noise.

That would make the graph useful for both small personal projects and large repositories with dozens of contributors.

Overall, I think this would significantly improve repository navigation and provide a much clearer picture of a project's development activity without forcing developers to leave GitHub or rely on terminal commands.

[navxga]

Thank you so much for the support and for laying out the points so well! 🙌

You raised something I hadn't made explicit in the original post but that's really the core issue: context fragmentation. That's exactly it — today we have to keep jumping between Commits, Branches, PRs, and Network just to mentally piece together the repo's "real state." That's pure friction in daily work.

I really like the idea of a "Show commits from all branches" toggle on the Commits page — it's a much more realistic implementation path than asking for an entirely new feature, and it would still solve most of the problem.

The filters you suggested (active branches, author, time range, highlight merges, collapse inactive ones) also make total sense — that would basically turn it into a visual, interactive "graph log," without needing to open the terminal at all.

One point worth highlighting for anyone landing on this thread: this would be a huge help for teams working with trunk-based development or short-lived feature branches, where branches pop in and out constantly — today it's almost impossible to track that without refreshing the Network tab over and over (which, as you said, only updates once a day anyway).

For anyone reading this who agrees: drop an upvote (or a ❤️) on the main post and share your own workflow in the comments — the more real use cases we bring up (small teams, large teams, open source, etc.), the more weight this gains for GitHub's team to actually prioritize it.