# GitHub Alternatives — complete directory Source: https://githubalternatives.com/ Last updated: 2026-08-17 Licence: content free to quote with attribution to githubalternatives.com --- # GitHub Alternatives > A neutral, maintained directory of GitHub alternatives. Compare GitLab, Bitbucket, Codeberg, Forgejo, Gitea, SourceHut, Azure Repos and more by price, licence, hosting model and free-tier limits. Updated August 2026. - **Source:** https://githubalternatives.com/ - **Last updated:** 2026-08-17 - **Platforms listed:** 28 (25 active) This is a directory, not a ranking. Platforms are grouped by how they are run, because that choice constrains everything else. Every price was checked against the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-08-17, and each entry cites its source. ## Comparison table | Platform | Hosting | Licence | Free tier | Paid plans | Status | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | GitHub | Cloud, plus GitHub Enterprise Server on-premises | Proprietary | Unlimited public and private repositories, 2,000 Actions minutes per month, 500 MB package storage. Actions and packages are free without limit on public repositories. | Team from $4/user/month, Enterprise from $21/user/month | active | | GitLab | Cloud and self-managed | Open core — MIT for Community Edition, proprietary for paid tiers | Free tier on GitLab.com. Accounts created after 27 January 2026 are limited to 3 top-level groups, and new private top-level namespaces are capped at 5 users. | Premium $29/user/month, Ultimate $99/user/month (billed annually) | active | | Bitbucket | Cloud and Data Center | Proprietary | Up to 5 users, 50 build minutes per month, 1 GB Git LFS storage | Standard $3.65/user/month, Premium $7.25/user/month | active | | Azure Repos (Azure DevOps) | Cloud and Azure DevOps Server on-premises | Proprietary | First 5 users free with unlimited private repositories. Unlimited free Stakeholder accounts. One hosted CI job with 1,800 minutes per month, plus one self-hosted job with unlimited minutes. | Basic $6/user/month, Basic + Test Plans $52/user/month | active | | AWS CodeCommit | Cloud (AWS) | Proprietary | 5 active users per month included in the AWS Free Tier | $1 per additional active user per month | active | | Cursor Origin | Cloud (Cursor) | Proprietary | None. Origin requires a paid Cursor plan. | Included with Cursor Pro, Teams and Enterprise plans | beta | | Gitee | Cloud, with self-hosted enterprise editions | Proprietary | Free personal accounts with private repositories | Paid enterprise plans, priced in CNY | active | | SourceHut | Cloud and self-hosted | Open source (AGPL and others), self-hostable | Most services are free to use during the public alpha. Builds and chat require a paid account. | $4, $8 or $12 per month — identical features, you pick what you can afford | active | | Codeberg | Cloud, operated by Codeberg e.V. | Runs Forgejo (GPL-3.0) | Free for all free and open-source projects | None — funded by donations and membership fees | active | | Launchpad | Cloud, operated by Canonical | AGPL-3.0 | Free for open-source projects | Commercial hosting by arrangement with Canonical | active | | GNU Savannah | Cloud, operated by the Free Software Foundation | Runs Savane (GPL) | Free for projects that qualify | None | active | | SourceForge | Cloud | Runs Apache Allura (Apache-2.0) | Free for open-source projects, supported by advertising | Paid promotion and mirroring options for project owners | active | | Forgejo | Self-hosted, or use Codeberg | GPL-3.0 | Free and unlimited — it is your server | None | active | | Gitea | Self-hosted, Gitea Cloud, or Gitea Enterprise | MIT for the open-source edition | Self-managed open source is free with no user or repository limits | Gitea Enterprise $9.50–$19/user/month with a one-year commitment | active | | GitLab Community Edition | Self-hosted | MIT | Free, unlimited users and repositories | Optional paid self-managed tiers add security and compliance features | active | | OneDev | Self-hosted | MIT | Free and unlimited | Optional paid support subscriptions | active | | Gogs | Self-hosted | MIT | Free and unlimited | None | active | | Pagure | Self-hosted, or use pagure.io | GPL-2.0 | Free and unlimited | None | active | | Phorge | Self-hosted | Apache-2.0 | Free and unlimited | None | active | | Fossil | Self-hosted | BSD-2-Clause | Free and unlimited | None | active | | Cloudflare Artifacts | Cloud (Cloudflare) | Proprietary service; the ArtifactFS filesystem driver is open source | First 10,000 operations and 1 GB storage per month included during beta | $0.15 per 1,000 operations, $0.50 per GB-month | beta | | Netlify Source | Cloud (Netlify) | Proprietary | Part of the Netlify platform rather than a separately priced product | No separate pricing published | beta | | Radicle | Peer-to-peer, no central host | Open source (MIT and Apache-2.0) | Free — there is no service to pay for | None | active | | Perforce Helix Core | Self-hosted or Perforce-managed cloud | Proprietary | Free for up to 5 users and 20 workspaces | Quoted per seat; contact sales | active | | Unity Version Control | Cloud or on-premises | Proprietary | Free tier available for small teams with storage limits | Per-seat pricing through Unity, with storage charged separately | active | | JetBrains Space | Was cloud and on-premises | Proprietary | No longer available | No longer sold | discontinued | | Google Cloud Source Repositories | Was cloud (Google Cloud) | Proprietary | No longer available to new projects | Existing customers only | closed-to-new | | Phabricator | Was self-hosted | Apache-2.0 | Source remains available but unmaintained | No longer sold | discontinued | ## The baseline: GitHub Listed first, and covered on the same terms as everything else. You cannot judge an alternative without stating plainly what it is an alternative to. ### GitHub *The default, and for most projects still the right answer.* - **Website:** https://github.com/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Cloud, plus GitHub Enterprise Server on-premises - **Licence:** Proprietary - **Free tier:** Unlimited public and private repositories, 2,000 Actions minutes per month, 500 MB package storage. Actions and packages are free without limit on public repositories. - **Paid plans:** Team from $4/user/month, Enterprise from $21/user/month - **Note:** Advertised rates are introductory for the first 12 months; renewal pricing differs. Copilot is billed separately. - **Source:** https://github.com/pricing (verified 2026-08-17) GitHub is the largest code host in the world, and that is its main advantage: the contributor network, the Actions marketplace, the integrations and the hiring signal all follow from scale that nothing else here matches. Its free tier is genuinely generous. Most projects leave for a specific reason rather than a general one — wanting to self-host, avoiding Microsoft ownership, needing data residency, or escaping per-seat costs at scale. **Strengths** - By far the largest pool of potential contributors and reviewers - Actions marketplace and third-party integrations are unmatched - Generous free tier with unlimited private repositories **Trade-offs** - Owned by Microsoft, which concentrates a great deal of the ecosystem - No self-hosted option below GitHub Enterprise Server pricing - Actions minutes on private repositories get expensive at scale ## Hosted commercial platforms Vendor-run Git hosting with a free tier and paid seats. Closest in shape to GitHub itself: you sign up, push, and someone else runs the servers. ### GitLab *The most complete like-for-like replacement for GitHub.* - **Website:** https://about.gitlab.com/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Cloud and self-managed - **Licence:** Open core — MIT for Community Edition, proprietary for paid tiers - **Free tier:** Free tier on GitLab.com. Accounts created after 27 January 2026 are limited to 3 top-level groups, and new private top-level namespaces are capped at 5 users. - **Paid plans:** Premium $29/user/month, Ultimate $99/user/month (billed annually) - **Note:** Self-managed Community Edition is free and unlimited. - **Source:** https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/free_user_limit.html (verified 2026-08-17) GitLab covers the same ground as GitHub and then some: repositories, merge requests, issue boards, a mature built-in CI/CD system, a container registry, and security scanning. The self-managed Community Edition is genuinely free with no seat limit, which makes GitLab the usual destination for teams that want to leave GitHub without giving up features. **Strengths** - Built-in CI/CD that predates GitHub Actions and remains deeply integrated - Community Edition is free and unlimited when self-hosted - Single application covering plan, build, secure and deploy **Trade-offs** - Self-hosting is resource-hungry compared with lightweight forges - The free SaaS tier has tightened repeatedly since 2022 - Interface density is a common complaint from small teams ### Bitbucket *Atlassian's forge, built around Jira integration.* - **Website:** https://bitbucket.org/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Cloud and Data Center - **Licence:** Proprietary - **Free tier:** Up to 5 users, 50 build minutes per month, 1 GB Git LFS storage - **Paid plans:** Standard $3.65/user/month, Premium $7.25/user/month - **Note:** Add-ons: 1,000 extra build minutes or 100 GB storage for $10/month each. - **Source:** https://www.atlassian.com/software/bitbucket/pricing (verified 2026-08-17) Bitbucket makes most sense if your team already lives in Jira and Confluence. Issues, branches and deployments cross-link with Atlassian tooling automatically. Bitbucket Pipelines handles CI. Per-seat pricing undercuts both GitHub Team and GitLab Premium, though the free tier stops at five users. **Strengths** - Native Jira and Confluence integration, not a bolted-on app - Cheapest per-seat pricing among the major commercial forges - Data Center option for regulated on-premises deployment **Trade-offs** - Free tier caps at 5 users - Smaller open-source community than GitHub or GitLab - Standalone Bitbucket Server reached end of life in February 2024 ### Azure Repos (Azure DevOps) *Unlimited private Git repos inside the Microsoft stack.* - **Website:** https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/devops/repos - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Cloud and Azure DevOps Server on-premises - **Licence:** Proprietary - **Free tier:** First 5 users free with unlimited private repositories. Unlimited free Stakeholder accounts. One hosted CI job with 1,800 minutes per month, plus one self-hosted job with unlimited minutes. - **Paid plans:** Basic $6/user/month, Basic + Test Plans $52/user/month - **Note:** Extra hosted parallel jobs $40/month; extra self-hosted jobs $15/month. - **Source:** https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/devops/azure-devops-services/ (verified 2026-08-17) Azure Repos is the Git service inside Azure DevOps, alongside Boards, Pipelines and Artifacts. It is owned by Microsoft, the same as GitHub, but sits on separate infrastructure with a separate roadmap and a stronger enterprise governance story. The unlimited self-hosted CI minutes are unusually generous. **Strengths** - Unlimited private repositories even on the free tier - Unlimited CI minutes on self-hosted agents - Deep Active Directory and Entra ID integration **Trade-offs** - Also Microsoft-owned, so it does not reduce vendor concentration - Interface feels dated next to newer forges - Microsoft steers new work toward GitHub, so investment is uneven ### AWS CodeCommit *Reopened to new customers in November 2025 after an 16-month closure.* - **Website:** https://aws.amazon.com/codecommit/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Cloud (AWS) - **Licence:** Proprietary - **Free tier:** 5 active users per month included in the AWS Free Tier - **Paid plans:** $1 per additional active user per month - **Note:** Closed to new customers on 25 July 2024, then reopened on 25 November 2025. Many comparison articles have not been updated. - **Source:** https://docs.aws.amazon.com/codecommit/latest/userguide/history.html (verified 2026-08-17) CodeCommit is managed Git hosting inside AWS, with IAM for access control and native hooks into CodePipeline and CodeBuild. AWS closed it to new customers in July 2024 and told people to migrate away, then reversed the decision in November 2025 and resumed adding features. That history is worth weighing: the service is available again, but it has already been deprioritised once. **Strengths** - IAM-native access control with no separate user directory - Repositories stay inside your AWS account boundary and region - Very low cost at $1 per active user beyond the free five **Trade-offs** - AWS already tried to sunset it once, which is a real continuity signal - No issue tracker, wiki, or pull-request UI worth the name - Only useful if you are already committed to AWS ### Cursor Origin *Launched 17 August 2026. A Git forge built into the Cursor editor.* - **Website:** https://cursor.com/docs/origin - **Status:** beta - **Hosting:** Cloud (Cursor) - **Licence:** Proprietary - **Free tier:** None. Origin requires a paid Cursor plan. - **Paid plans:** Included with Cursor Pro, Teams and Enterprise plans - **Note:** Early beta with a staged rollout, so availability depends on your plan and when your account is reached. Teams on legacy privacy mode must switch to Privacy Mode before Origin can be enabled. - **Source:** https://cursor.com/docs/origin (verified 2026-08-17) Origin is Cursor's own Git forge, announced on 17 August 2026. It hosts repositories, speaks standard Git, mirrors from GitHub, and supports pull requests with review and merge, plus code browsing and search. There is no issue tracker and no built-in CI; instead Cursor launched with integrations for Vercel, Buildkite and Depot. The pitch is depth of integration with the Cursor editor and its cloud agents rather than breadth of forge features. **Strengths** - Pull requests with review and merge, unusual for a forge this new - Syncs from existing GitHub repositories rather than demanding a migration - Tightly integrated with Cursor agents and Cursor code search **Trade-offs** - No free tier at all — a paid Cursor plan is required - Early beta with staged access, so you may not be able to enable it yet - No issue tracking and no native CI; both depend on third parties ### Gitee *China's dominant code hosting platform.* - **Website:** https://gitee.com/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Cloud, with self-hosted enterprise editions - **Licence:** Proprietary - **Free tier:** Free personal accounts with private repositories - **Paid plans:** Paid enterprise plans, priced in CNY - **Note:** Public repositories are subject to mandatory content review under Chinese law. - **Source:** https://gitee.com/ (verified 2026-08-17) Gitee is the largest Git host in mainland China, with domestic infrastructure that avoids the latency and reliability problems of reaching GitHub from inside the country. Public repositories undergo manual content review before they become visible, a legal requirement that has no equivalent on Western platforms and which materially changes how you would use it. **Strengths** - Fast and reliable from inside mainland China - Large domestic developer community - Enterprise editions available for on-premises deployment **Trade-offs** - Mandatory review of public repositories before publication - Interface and documentation are primarily Chinese - Subject to Chinese data and content regulation ### SourceHut *Minimal, fast, entirely JavaScript-free, email-driven.* - **Website:** https://sourcehut.org/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Cloud and self-hosted - **Licence:** Open source (AGPL and others), self-hostable - **Free tier:** Most services are free to use during the public alpha. Builds and chat require a paid account. - **Paid plans:** $4, $8 or $12 per month — identical features, you pick what you can afford - **Note:** SourceHut never asks for payment from anyone whose financial situation would not comfortably support it. - **Source:** https://sourcehut.org/pricing/ (verified 2026-08-17) SourceHut is a deliberate rejection of the modern forge. No JavaScript anywhere in the interface, patches arrive by email, and pages load essentially instantly. The email-based contribution workflow is the same one the Linux kernel uses. It suits people who already work that way and frustrates people who expect a pull-request button. **Strengths** - Fastest interface of any forge here, with zero client-side JavaScript - Honest, transparent pricing with no feature gating between tiers - Email-driven patch workflow familiar to kernel and BSD developers **Trade-offs** - Still officially in public alpha - The email workflow is a genuine barrier for drive-by contributors - Sparse interface with few conveniences ## Community and non-profit hosting Free hosting run by non-profits or volunteer communities, funded by donations. Usually restricted to open-source or free-software projects. ### Codeberg *Non-profit Forgejo hosting, run democratically from Berlin.* - **Website:** https://codeberg.org/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Cloud, operated by Codeberg e.V. - **Licence:** Runs Forgejo (GPL-3.0) - **Free tier:** Free for all free and open-source projects - **Paid plans:** None — funded by donations and membership fees - **Note:** Codeberg e.V. is a registered non-profit association based in Berlin, Germany. - **Source:** https://docs.codeberg.org/getting-started/what-is-codeberg/ (verified 2026-08-17) Codeberg is free hosting run by a registered German non-profit whose members elect its leadership. It runs Forgejo, includes Codeberg Pages for static sites and Codeberg CI for builds, and takes no venture funding. The trade-off is scope: it exists to host free and open-source software, so it is not a general-purpose home for private commercial work. **Strengths** - Democratic non-profit governance with member voting - No tracking, no advertising, no investor pressure - EU-based hosting with GDPR alignment by default **Trade-offs** - Open-source projects only, by policy - Smaller compute budget than commercial platforms - CI capacity is modest and shared across the community ### Launchpad *Canonical's platform, and the home of Ubuntu development.* - **Website:** https://launchpad.net/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Cloud, operated by Canonical - **Licence:** AGPL-3.0 - **Free tier:** Free for open-source projects - **Paid plans:** Commercial hosting by arrangement with Canonical - **Note:** Supports both Git and Bazaar repositories. - **Source:** https://launchpad.net/ (verified 2026-08-17) Launchpad hosts Ubuntu itself, along with much of the Debian and Ubuntu packaging ecosystem. Beyond Git hosting it offers build farms that produce packages for multiple architectures, plus translation tooling and bug tracking that spans distributions. It is specialised infrastructure rather than a GitHub substitute. **Strengths** - Personal Package Archives that build for many architectures - Excellent cross-distribution bug tracking - Mature translation and localisation workflow **Trade-offs** - Dated interface - Strongly oriented toward Ubuntu and Debian packaging - Small community outside that ecosystem ### GNU Savannah *The Free Software Foundation forge, with strict licence policy.* - **Website:** https://savannah.gnu.org/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Cloud, operated by the Free Software Foundation - **Licence:** Runs Savane (GPL) - **Free tier:** Free for projects that qualify - **Paid plans:** None - **Note:** Projects must use an FSF-approved free software licence and avoid dependencies on non-free software. - **Source:** https://savannah.gnu.org/ (verified 2026-08-17) Savannah hosts GNU project software and other free software that meets the Free Software Foundation licence criteria. Submissions are reviewed by hand against those criteria before approval. If ideological consistency about software freedom is the point, Savannah is the only host here that enforces it as policy. **Strengths** - Enforces free software licensing as a condition of hosting - Extremely long-lived and stable since 2001 - No corporate ownership or commercial pressure **Trade-offs** - Manual project review before approval - Interface is functional but very dated - Non-free dependencies disqualify a project ### SourceForge *The original forge, still running and now on Apache Allura.* - **Website:** https://sourceforge.net/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Cloud - **Licence:** Runs Apache Allura (Apache-2.0) - **Free tier:** Free for open-source projects, supported by advertising - **Paid plans:** Paid promotion and mirroring options for project owners - **Note:** Reputation still suffers from the 2013–2016 bundled-adware period under previous ownership. That practice ended after the 2016 sale. - **Source:** https://sourceforge.net/ (verified 2026-08-17) SourceForge predates GitHub by seven years and still serves a large download and mirroring network, which is its main remaining draw for projects shipping binaries. Ownership changed in 2016 and the adware bundling that damaged its reputation was removed, but the association has proven durable. **Strengths** - Global mirror network for large binary downloads - Free for open-source projects with no seat limits - Built-in download statistics and reviews **Trade-offs** - Lasting reputational damage from the pre-2016 adware era - Advertising-supported interface - Little developer momentum compared with modern forges ## Self-hosted forges Software you run on your own server. No seat cost, no vendor lock-in, and no one else holding your source code. You pay in sysadmin time instead. ### Forgejo *Community-governed Gitea fork. The default modern self-hosted choice.* - **Website:** https://forgejo.org/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Self-hosted, or use Codeberg - **Licence:** GPL-3.0 - **Free tier:** Free and unlimited — it is your server - **Paid plans:** None - **Note:** Forked from Gitea in 2022 after Gitea moved to for-profit company control. - **Source:** https://forgejo.org/ (verified 2026-08-17) Forgejo appeared when Gitea was placed under a for-profit company, and it is now governed by its community with a hard commitment to staying free software. It runs from a single binary, uses very little memory, and includes Forgejo Actions, which is compatible with GitHub Actions workflow files. Federation between instances is in active development. **Strengths** - Single binary, runs comfortably on a $5 virtual server - Forgejo Actions reuses GitHub Actions workflow syntax - Community governance with no company able to relicense it **Trade-offs** - You own backups, upgrades and uptime - Federation is still under development - Smaller plugin ecosystem than GitLab ### Gitea *Lightweight Go forge with commercial cloud and enterprise editions.* - **Website:** https://about.gitea.com/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Self-hosted, Gitea Cloud, or Gitea Enterprise - **Licence:** MIT for the open-source edition - **Free tier:** Self-managed open source is free with no user or repository limits - **Paid plans:** Gitea Enterprise $9.50–$19/user/month with a one-year commitment - **Note:** Enterprise adds SAML SSO, audit logs and Kubernetes autoscaling runners. Discounts for non-profits and small companies. - **Source:** https://about.gitea.com/pricing (verified 2026-08-17) Gitea is the lightweight Go forge that Forgejo forked from. The open-source edition remains MIT-licensed and free with no limits, while a commercial company now sells managed cloud hosting and an enterprise edition. Choosing between Gitea and Forgejo is mostly a governance question rather than a technical one, since the codebases remain close. **Strengths** - Very low resource use, installs in minutes - MIT licence permits commercial redistribution - Commercial support available if you want it **Trade-offs** - For-profit governance was what triggered the Forgejo fork - Some features are reserved for the Enterprise edition - You still run the infrastructure on the free tier ### GitLab Community Edition *The full GitLab platform, self-hosted, with no seat cost.* - **Website:** https://about.gitlab.com/install/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Self-hosted - **Licence:** MIT - **Free tier:** Free, unlimited users and repositories - **Paid plans:** Optional paid self-managed tiers add security and compliance features - **Note:** Expect to allocate at least 4 GB of RAM, and realistically 8 GB. - **Source:** https://about.gitlab.com/install/ (verified 2026-08-17) The Community Edition gives you GitLab repositories, merge requests, issues, the container registry and GitLab CI on your own hardware with no per-user charge. It is the heaviest option here by a wide margin, but nothing else self-hosted matches its feature coverage. **Strengths** - Most complete feature set of any self-hosted forge - No seat limits at all - Clear upgrade path to paid tiers without migrating **Trade-offs** - Needs substantially more memory and CPU than Forgejo or Gitea - Upgrades are involved and occasionally breaking - Security and compliance features are paid-tier only ### OneDev *Self-hosted forge with CI/CD and code search built in.* - **Website:** https://onedev.io/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Self-hosted - **Licence:** MIT - **Free tier:** Free and unlimited - **Paid plans:** Optional paid support subscriptions - **Note:** Includes symbol-level code search without any external indexing service. - **Source:** https://onedev.io/ (verified 2026-08-17) OneDev bundles Git hosting, a build pipeline, issue tracking and unusually good symbol-aware code search into one Java application. The code search and code navigation are better than most self-hosted alternatives out of the box, with no separate indexing service to run. **Strengths** - Symbol-level code search and navigation included - CI/CD built in rather than bolted on - Straightforward Docker deployment **Trade-offs** - Small community and contributor base - Java runtime has a heavier memory footprint than Go forges - Fewer third-party integrations ### Gogs *The original lightweight Go forge that Gitea forked from.* - **Website:** https://gogs.io/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Self-hosted - **Licence:** MIT - **Free tier:** Free and unlimited - **Paid plans:** None - **Note:** Development is slower than Gitea and Forgejo. Check recent commit activity first. - **Source:** https://gogs.io/ (verified 2026-08-17) Gogs is the ancestor of both Gitea and Forgejo, and it still runs from a single binary on hardware as small as a Raspberry Pi. Development moves slowly compared with its descendants, so most new deployments pick Forgejo instead. It remains a reasonable choice where minimal resource use matters more than feature pace. **Strengths** - Smallest resource footprint of any forge listed - Runs on a Raspberry Pi without complaint - Very simple to install and maintain **Trade-offs** - Slow development compared with Gitea and Forgejo - Fewer features than its own forks - Small community ### Pagure *Fedora's forge, which stores issues in Git itself.* - **Website:** https://pagure.io/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Self-hosted, or use pagure.io - **Licence:** GPL-2.0 - **Free tier:** Free and unlimited - **Paid plans:** None - **Note:** Issues and pull request metadata live in Git repositories, so they clone with the project. - **Source:** https://pagure.io/ (verified 2026-08-17) Pagure is the Python forge built by Red Hat for Fedora. Its distinguishing design decision is storing issue and pull-request metadata inside Git repositories rather than a database, which means your entire project history clones with the code and cannot be stranded on a dead server. **Strengths** - Issue and PR metadata are stored in Git and clone with the project - No database lock-in for project metadata - Proven at Fedora scale **Trade-offs** - Community is centred almost entirely on Fedora - Interface is plainer than modern forges - Slow feature development ### Phorge *Community continuation of Phabricator, which stopped in 2021.* - **Website:** https://we.phorge.it/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Self-hosted - **Licence:** Apache-2.0 - **Free tier:** Free and unlimited - **Paid plans:** None - **Note:** Phabricator itself was discontinued in 2021. Phorge is the maintained fork. - **Source:** https://we.phorge.it/ (verified 2026-08-17) Phabricator ran code review at Facebook, Wikimedia and many other large engineering organisations before its maintainers stopped work in 2021. Phorge picked it up. Its Differential review tool is stack-based rather than branch-based, which many people still consider a better model than pull requests for large changes. **Strengths** - Differential remains an excellent stacked code review tool - Comprehensive suite covering tasks, wiki, review and audit - Proven at very large engineering organisations **Trade-offs** - PHP application with a demanding setup - Modest contributor base for a codebase this large - Interface conventions differ sharply from GitHub ### Fossil *Not Git. A self-contained VCS with wiki, tickets and forum in one binary.* - **Website:** https://fossil-scm.org/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Self-hosted - **Licence:** BSD-2-Clause - **Free tier:** Free and unlimited - **Paid plans:** None - **Note:** Fossil is its own version control system, not a Git host. It can import and export Git. - **Source:** https://fossil-scm.org/ (verified 2026-08-17) Fossil is a complete version control system written by the author of SQLite, and it is what SQLite itself uses. One executable provides version control, a bug tracker, a wiki, a forum and a web interface, with the whole repository stored as a single SQLite database file you can copy anywhere. Choosing Fossil means leaving Git, not changing Git hosts. **Strengths** - Entire project is one file you can back up by copying it - Wiki, tickets and forum need no extra services - Exceptionally stable, with a long support record **Trade-offs** - Not Git, so it breaks compatibility with the wider ecosystem - Very small community - Few third-party tools or integrations ## Emerging: Git storage for agents A new category, created because AI coding agents need to create repositories by the million and throw them away. These speak the Git protocol but are not forges: no issue tracker, no pull requests, no web interface. Listed separately so they are not mistaken for GitHub replacements. ### Cloudflare Artifacts *Versioned storage that speaks Git, built for agents rather than people.* - **Website:** https://developers.cloudflare.com/artifacts/ - **Status:** beta - **Hosting:** Cloud (Cloudflare) - **Licence:** Proprietary service; the ArtifactFS filesystem driver is open source - **Free tier:** First 10,000 operations and 1 GB storage per month included during beta - **Paid plans:** $0.15 per 1,000 operations, $0.50 per GB-month - **Note:** Closed beta as of August 2026 — access requires an application. Announced April 2026 with public beta targeted for May, which has not yet arrived. - **Source:** https://blog.cloudflare.com/artifacts-git-for-agents-beta/ (verified 2026-08-17) Artifacts is Git-compatible storage built on Durable Objects, Workers, R2 and KV rather than a traditional Git server. You can create repositories through a REST or Workers API, clone and push with any standard Git client, fork, and import from GitHub or any other remote. It is designed for AI agents that need to spin up millions of throwaway repositories, and it deliberately omits everything a forge provides: no issues, no pull requests, no code review, no web interface. Treat it as infrastructure, not as somewhere to move your project. **Strengths** - Repositories can be created programmatically at very large scale - Works with any standard Git client over authenticated HTTPS - Native git-notes support, so agents can attach metadata without rewriting objects **Trade-offs** - Closed beta, so you cannot simply sign up - Not a forge: no issues, pull requests, review or web interface - Durable Object architecture imposes chunking and memory limits on very large objects ### Netlify Source *Announced 17 August 2026. Git storage built into the Netlify platform.* - **Website:** https://www.netlify.com/blog/netlify-source-with-netlify-cto-dana-lawson - **Status:** beta - **Hosting:** Cloud (Netlify) - **Licence:** Proprietary - **Free tier:** Part of the Netlify platform rather than a separately priced product - **Paid plans:** No separate pricing published - **Note:** Netlify states plainly that connecting an external Git provider remains a core feature, so Source supplements GitHub rather than replacing it. - **Source:** https://www.netlify.com/blog/netlify-source-with-netlify-cto-dana-lawson (verified 2026-08-17) Netlify announced on 17 August 2026 that it is now a Git host. Source provides automatic versioning for code created through Netlify Drop and Agent Runners, and it is built to preserve context beyond the code itself — prompts, decisions and intent alongside commits. Netlify published clone benchmarks against GitHub: p50 282 ms versus 385 ms, and p95 693 ms versus 1,510 ms, with full CI setup at p95 1.5 s versus 3.3 s. It is not a forge: Netlify does not describe pull requests, issues or code review as Source features, and review happens through Deploy Previews instead. **Strengths** - Published clone and CI benchmarks that beat GitHub on both p50 and p95 - No separate account or external repository needed to start - Designed to keep agent context, not just commits **Trade-offs** - Not a forge: no pull requests, issues or code review described - Netlify positions it as a supplement to external Git, not a replacement - No published standalone pricing or release-status detail ## Decentralised and local-first No central server at all. Repository data and its metadata replicate peer to peer, so the project survives any single host going away. ### Radicle *Peer-to-peer code collaboration with no server to shut down.* - **Website:** https://radicle.xyz/ - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Peer-to-peer, no central host - **Licence:** Open source (MIT and Apache-2.0) - **Free tier:** Free — there is no service to pay for - **Paid plans:** None - **Note:** Repositories, issues and patches replicate directly between peers. Running a public node is optional. - **Source:** https://radicle.xyz/ (verified 2026-08-17) Radicle replicates repositories and their issues and patches directly between participants over a gossip protocol, so a project has no single host that can remove it. Identity is cryptographic rather than an account on someone else's server. It is the most genuinely censorship-resistant option here, and also the least convenient for casual contributors. **Strengths** - No central authority that can delete or restrict a project - Issues and patches replicate with the code, not a separate database - Cryptographic identity with no account signup **Trade-offs** - Discovery is hard without a central index - Small ecosystem and few integrations - Contributors must install a client to participate ## Enterprise and large-binary version control Built for huge binary assets and centralised workflows rather than distributed Git. Standard in game development, film and hardware. ### Perforce Helix Core *The standard for game development and very large binary assets.* - **Website:** https://www.perforce.com/products/helix-core - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Self-hosted or Perforce-managed cloud - **Licence:** Proprietary - **Free tier:** Free for up to 5 users and 20 workspaces - **Paid plans:** Quoted per seat; contact sales - **Note:** Centralised rather than distributed version control. File locking prevents conflicting binary edits. - **Source:** https://www.perforce.com/products/helix-core (verified 2026-08-17) Helix Core is centralised version control built for repositories measured in terabytes, where most content is binary art assets that cannot be merged. Exclusive file locking stops two artists editing the same model, and clients only pull the files they need. Nearly every large game studio runs it. It is a different tool for a different problem, not a Git host. **Strengths** - Handles multi-terabyte repositories of binary assets - Exclusive file locking, which Git fundamentally cannot offer - Unreal Engine and Unity integrate with it directly **Trade-offs** - Not Git, and not distributed - Expensive beyond the free five-user tier - Needs dedicated administration ### Unity Version Control *Formerly Plastic SCM. Built for game teams with non-technical contributors.* - **Website:** https://unity.com/solutions/version-control - **Status:** active - **Hosting:** Cloud or on-premises - **Licence:** Proprietary - **Free tier:** Free tier available for small teams with storage limits - **Paid plans:** Per-seat pricing through Unity, with storage charged separately - **Note:** Supports both centralised and distributed workflows in one product. - **Source:** https://unity.com/solutions/version-control (verified 2026-08-17) Unity Version Control, previously Plastic SCM, targets game teams where artists and designers need version control that does not require understanding Git. It offers centralised and distributed workflows side by side, handles large binaries well, and provides a simplified client for non-programmers alongside a full one. **Strengths** - Separate simplified client aimed at artists and designers - Centralised and distributed workflows in the same product - Native Unity Editor integration **Trade-offs** - Strongly oriented toward Unity workflows - Storage costs accumulate quickly with large assets - Smaller community than Perforce in game development ## Discontinued and closed platforms Listed because they still appear in older comparison articles and search results. Do not start a new project on any of these. ### JetBrains Space *Shut down on 1 June 2025.* - **Website:** https://www.jetbrains.com/space/ - **Status:** discontinued - **Hosting:** Was cloud and on-premises - **Licence:** Proprietary - **Free tier:** No longer available - **Paid plans:** No longer sold - **Note:** JetBrains stopped selling subscriptions on 28 May 2024. Support ended 31 May 2025 and cloud organisations were deactivated on 1 June 2025. On-premises licences updated before that date continue to work indefinitely. - **Source:** https://blog.jetbrains.com/space/2024/05/27/the-future-of-space/ (verified 2026-08-17) Space combined Git hosting, CI, chat, documents and HR tooling in one product. JetBrains announced its discontinuation in May 2024 and shut down cloud instances on 1 June 2025. A narrower successor called SpaceCode entered private preview and was itself discontinued in November 2024. Do not start new work here. **Trade-offs** - Cloud instances were deactivated on 1 June 2025 - The SpaceCode successor was also discontinued - Only pre-existing on-premises licences still function ### Google Cloud Source Repositories *Closed to new customers since June 2024.* - **Website:** https://cloud.google.com/source-repositories - **Status:** closed-to-new - **Hosting:** Was cloud (Google Cloud) - **Licence:** Proprietary - **Free tier:** No longer available to new projects - **Paid plans:** Existing customers only - **Note:** Projects without prior usage cannot enable the service. Google directs new users to third-party Git providers. - **Source:** https://cloud.google.com/source-repositories/docs (verified 2026-08-17) Cloud Source Repositories was private Git hosting inside Google Cloud. Google closed it to new customers in June 2024. Projects that had not used it before that date cannot enable it, and Google now points new users toward external Git providers connected through Cloud Build. **Trade-offs** - Unavailable to any project that had not already enabled it - No feature development - Google recommends third-party providers instead ### Phabricator *Maintenance ended in 2021. Use Phorge instead.* - **Website:** https://phacility.com/ - **Status:** discontinued - **Hosting:** Was self-hosted - **Licence:** Apache-2.0 - **Free tier:** Source remains available but unmaintained - **Paid plans:** No longer sold - **Note:** Phorge is the community fork that continues development. - **Source:** https://we.phorge.it/ (verified 2026-08-17) Phabricator was the code review and project management suite behind engineering at Facebook, Wikimedia, Uber and others. Its maintainers wound down active development in 2021. The code is still available, but running an unmaintained PHP application on the public internet is a security liability. Phorge is the maintained continuation. **Trade-offs** - No maintenance, and therefore no security patches - Running it publicly is a real security risk - Phorge supersedes it ## Moving off GitHub Git history is portable by design. Every clone holds the complete history, so a mirror clone moves branches, tags and commits intact to any host: ```bash git clone --mirror https://github.com/user/repo.git cd repo.git git remote set-url --push origin git@newhost:user/repo.git git push --mirror ``` What does not travel is everything the platform layered on top: issues, pull request discussions, Actions workflows, releases, wikis, stars and project boards. GitLab, Gitea, Forgejo and Codeberg all ship importers that pull issues and pull requests across through the GitHub API. Budget time for CI, which always needs rewriting unless you move to Forgejo or Gitea, whose Actions implementations read GitHub Actions workflow files. ## Frequently asked questions ### What new GitHub alternatives launched in 2026? Three arrived in 2026. Cursor Origin launched on 17 August 2026 as a Git forge built into the Cursor editor, with pull requests and review but no issue tracker, and it requires a paid Cursor plan. Netlify announced the same day that Netlify Source makes it a Git host, though Netlify positions it as a supplement to external Git rather than a forge. Cloudflare Artifacts, announced in April 2026, is Git-compatible storage aimed at AI agents and remains in closed beta. All three are new enough that you should treat them as beta software. ### What is the best free alternative to GitHub? It depends on whether your code is open source. Codeberg is free with no seat limit for open-source projects and is run by a non-profit. For private commercial work, Azure Repos gives unlimited private repositories free for the first five users. If you can run a server, Forgejo and Gitea are free with no user limit at all. ### Which GitHub alternative can I self-host for free? Forgejo, Gitea, Gogs, OneDev, Pagure, Phorge and GitLab Community Edition are all free to self-host with no seat limits. Forgejo and Gitea run from a single binary and work comfortably on a small virtual server. GitLab Community Edition has the most features but needs at least 4 GB of RAM, and realistically 8 GB. ### What is the difference between Gitea and Forgejo? Forgejo was forked from Gitea in 2022 after Gitea was placed under the control of a for-profit company. The codebases remain close, so the practical difference is governance rather than features. Forgejo is community-governed and GPL-3.0 licensed. Gitea is MIT licensed and developed alongside commercial cloud and enterprise editions. ### Is GitLab actually cheaper than GitHub? Not on the hosted tiers. GitLab Premium costs $29 per user per month billed annually, which is more than GitHub Team. The saving comes from self-hosting: GitLab Community Edition is free with unlimited users, so the cost becomes your server and your administration time rather than per-seat licensing. ### Can I move my GitHub repositories somewhere else without losing history? Yes. Git history, branches and tags move intact with a mirror clone, because every clone contains the full history. What does not move automatically is the platform-specific material around the code: issues, pull request discussions, Actions workflows, releases, wikis and stars. GitLab, Gitea, Forgejo and Codeberg all provide importers that migrate issues and pull requests as well. ### Is AWS CodeCommit still available? Yes. AWS closed CodeCommit to new customers on 25 July 2024, then reopened it on 25 November 2025 and resumed adding features. Many comparison articles still describe it as closed. Existing customers were never cut off. Weigh the fact that AWS deprioritised it once before building on it. ### What happened to JetBrains Space? JetBrains discontinued Space. Sales stopped on 28 May 2024, support ended on 31 May 2025, and cloud organisations were deactivated on 1 June 2025. A narrower successor called SpaceCode entered private preview and was also discontinued in November 2024. On-premises licences updated before the cutoff continue to work indefinitely. ### Which GitHub alternative is best for large binary files? Perforce Helix Core is the standard for repositories dominated by large binary assets, and it is free for up to five users and twenty workspaces. Unity Version Control, formerly Plastic SCM, targets the same problem with a simplified client for artists. Both offer exclusive file locking, which Git cannot provide because binary files cannot be merged. ### Are there GitHub alternatives that are not owned by a large company? Yes. Codeberg is run by Codeberg e.V., a registered non-profit in Berlin whose members elect its leadership. SourceHut is independently owned and funded by subscriptions. Forgejo is community-governed. Radicle has no central operator at all, since repositories replicate peer to peer. ### Do any GitHub alternatives support GitHub Actions workflows? Forgejo Actions and Gitea Actions both read GitHub Actions workflow files, so many existing workflows run with little or no change. Compatibility is good but not complete, and actions that call the GitHub API directly need rewriting. GitLab, Bitbucket and Azure DevOps use their own CI formats and require a full rewrite. --- GitHub Alternatives is an independent directory. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to GitHub, Inc. or Microsoft Corporation. GitHub is a trademark of GitHub, Inc. Pricing and availability change often. Every entry links to the vendor page it was taken from, with the date it was checked.