A developer needs to integrate their feature branch with the latest updates from the main branch, but wants to maintain a clean history. Should they use merge or rebase, and why?

When integrating a feature branch with the main branch while maintaining a clean history, rebase is preferred over merge. Rebase allows for a linear and cleaner commit history by applying the feature branch's changes on top of the main branch, avoiding unnecessary merge commits. This promotes a more straightforward and readable history.