No, it's more like a patch. In branch, you drag with you all the dependent changes, while with patch, you have only the actual change, and information which CL

No, it's more like a patch. In branch, you drag with you all the dependent changes, while with patch, you have only the actual change, and information which CL -- or PR in github terms -- is dependent. With branches, if someone updates the branch you depend on, your work is based on stale stuff, and it can get ugly. Just try to do it on github :-)