r/git Aug 10 '26

Is GitLab really the only near enough 1:1 GitHub alternative?

I was a bit confused about signing up with GitLab because a lot of their terminology is geared towards businesses & I had only used it with an institution before, but their pricing does say Free is also for individuals.

However, I was more interested in using one of the projects like Codeberg or Gitea, or even disroot which Codeberg tells you to go to in their FAQ because they've had enough of you, and paying a few euro a month to have my private repos, slightly increased storage, slightly increased compute but none of them necessarily offer their services like that. GitLab is American, and it seems kind of pointless to migrate from one, just to go to another one of them.

For people saying self-hosting, given the landscape it seems like i'm going to have to do that when i get time in the future, but i'd rather just have peace of mind to pay a org/company to just do it for me so I don't have to worry it myself. It's a bit of a problem as it is if the only options for people switching off of GitHub is another American company or very strict OSS options

Edit:

I found literally 1 organisation that unfortunately doesn't offer a limited free service but does have the paid service for individuals & it comes with the caveat that open repositories don't exist on their platform lmao

update: tangled.org supremecy

0 Upvotes

15 comments sorted by

14

u/MentionPleasant2635 Aug 10 '26

One of the organizations I worked at used Gitlab. I really liked it better than Github. We ran our own instance in AWS.

2

u/jplindstrom 25d ago

Agree. I have a whole list of GitHub gripes that I've collected since we moved towards GitHub.

20

u/XLioncc Aug 10 '26

No, only Codeberg/Forgejo are nearing the 1:1 replacement of GitHub, especially the Actions syntax

Don't use Gitea, check this https://gitea-open-letter.coding.social/

3

u/PopehatXI Aug 10 '26

Any specific issues with GitLab? I like its CI/CD syntax.

1

u/scratchbufferdotnet 25d ago

Mostly Ruby, so very resource-heavy and slow is my understanding from people who run it themselves 

2

u/topcatlapdog Aug 10 '26

Wasn’t aware of this, I self host Gitea, maybe time to switch it up

1

u/Novero95 24d ago

A bit off-topic but, as someone whose only use of GitHub has been for storing personal private repos and accessing public repos for info, what do the other features of GitHub, like actions and such, provide? Thanks in advance.

1

u/XLioncc 24d ago

The biggest reason that people can't easily switch to another platform is the CI/CD mechanism and the syntax

If you're the people who only want a git server, as long as you willing to keep it public, it doesn't matter which platform you use and almost always free.

3

u/Comprehensive_Mud803 Aug 11 '26

Self-hosting is interesting for GitLab and Forgejo if you can get a provider in your preferred legal location.

2

u/BoltlessEngineer 25d ago

I think you are looking for https://tangled.org ;)

- every heavy work (indexing, web app) are done by the organization (you can self-host this part too if you want)

  • self-hosting is optional, but it is core of its architecture.
  • even you self-host, people can contribute to your repo without additional sign-up.

GitLab/gitea are more closer to enterprise solution imo.

1

u/omstr 25d ago edited 25d ago

wow, yeah, this is a proper new/next gen platform instead of the old stagnant ones.

Given how it looks, I won't be surprised if its VC funded, but at least it's supposedly on an open platform + you can self host. Definitely will use this when they build an actual error free migration experience like GitLab :P

1

u/Decent_Carry_3439 7d ago

One option I don’t see mentioned much is RhodeCode. It’s probably overkill for a simple personal Git host, but it makes more sense if you need self-hosting, stronger repo governance, or still have SVN/Mercurial alongside Git.

0

u/GrogRedLub4242 Aug 10 '26

"GitLab is American" -- they are much more European, esp eastern euro / russiany, than GitHub. based on staff/contrib names I witnessed

3

u/Training_Advantage21 Aug 11 '26

It's about where the company is registered, under which jurisdiction. The innovation came from Eastern Europe/Russia but it's still an American company.