Maybe add control of whether to download repos or to clone them - make download the default

[claremacrae]

git clone was easier to write than the download code...

But some IDEs struggle if presented with a directory that contains hundreds of .git/ folders inside... The JetBrains IDEs show the history of all the contained repos, by default, which really slows things down.

[argenos]

I was about to suggest this, since the git history of the repos might not be necessary and takes up additional space. You can download a zipped version of the repository with wget:

wget https://github.com/<user>/<repo>/archive/<branch>.zip