Cloning Git repositories with SSH provides secure authentication and encrypted data transfer without requiring password input for each operation. As the creator of CoreUI, a widely used open-source UI library, I’ve set up SSH authentication for thousands of developers across our open-source and enterprise projects. From my expertise, the most effective approach is using SSH keys with git clone for secure and convenient repository access. This method eliminates password prompts while providing stronger security through public-key cryptography for all Git operations.