The underlying model is really not that different. There are some details that give rise to implementation differences, but Git and Mercurial have converged on

The underlying model is really not that different. There are some details that give rise to implementation differences, but Git and Mercurial have converged on a very similar approach. The reason that arguments about Git vs Mercurial tend to focus on the interface is because it's the only thing that's really different. You can do all the same thing with both tools. There are a couple of actual real differences: Mercurial's extension capability. Mercurial's named branch capability. How important they are is a matter of opinion. I find it interesting that Mercurial was hitorically missing some Git features, but they've all been added as extensions (shipped with the core Mercurial distro generally). That's not really something that's so do-able with Git.