9 GitHub Alternatives to Share Your Open Source Projects

GitHub is a web-based hosting service for software development projects.

It has free and paid tier options. It also offers services for enterprises, including building custom commands, additional integrations, ad-free browsing, and 24/7 security monitoring.

In this article, we have listed down best alternatives to GitHub that will be useful for you.

Let’s get started!

Top GitHub Alternatives

Here are the 9 open source GitHub alternatives:

1. GitLab

GitLab is a web-based software tool that is used for collaborative code development. It is very popular with open source projects because GitLab offers unlimited freemium private repos, unlimited public repositories, and the ability to have unlimited collaborators.

This makes it possible for people of any size to use GitLab. Essentially, GitLab provides version control for your git repositories so you can easily collaborate with others on the same project.

There are many reasons why a developer or development team would want to use GitLab, but perhaps the most important reason is because it works on all major operating systems and web browsers.

That means you can use GitLab on your Windows machine, Mac computer, Linux workstation, Android tablet, and even a Chromebook. You can also access your repositories from a web browser on any computer.

GitLab is available as a cloud-based solution or as an installable version depending on your needs. GitLab provides self-hosted server applications so developers can run their own servers, thus reducing the load off of the companies’ IT staffs.

This enables developers to have control over their own access and have a very secure solution. The company also offers GitLab Enterprise Edition that comes with all the features available in a self-hosted installation plus more enterprise-level functionality such as LDAP group support, integrated Active Directory services, and 24×7 support.

2. Bitbucket

Bitbucket is a web-based hosting service for projects that use either the Mercurial, Git, or Subversion version control systems.

It is a cloud storage service specially designed for a development team with a large number of small files, which would be difficult to host on a single server.

Bitbucket allows several people to collaborate on the same set of files at once, with an easy-to-use web interface and flexible notification settings.

The source code is stored in a central version control system repository which can be either Mercurial, Git, or Subversion.

The main difference between Bitbucket and GitHub is that Bitbucket supports multiple version control systems, while GitHub does not.

3. SourceForge

SourceForge provides free hosting for open source software projects. It also provides access to many open source tools that are designed to help programmers write code better.

SourceForge provides many features that are great for programmers.

It is free to use, so there are no costs associated with the service. SourceForge also has a variety of open source tools that can help you write code better.

SourceForge is also very popular around the world, which means that you will have access to many different people who share your interests. You can upload files, ask questions, or anything else you need on SourceForge.

4. Gitea

Gitea is a Git based decentralized version control system that uses self-hosting and can be installed on a server. It’s like an alternative to GitHub and it doesn’t require registration to create an account.

Gitea is really easy to set up and it offers the option to use the PostgreSQL or MySQL databases.

It also has a very interesting SSH key authentication procedure that doesn’t require password usage.

Gitea is released under Apache license (v2).

The installation process is very simple and it doesn’t require any special configurations.

5. GitBucket

GitBucket is an open-source self-hosted git service that has unlimited private repositories hosted with either GitHub or Bitbucket.

It was developed to solve the problem of not being able to use the git protocol because of firewalls. It also allows for people who lack the technical knowledge of using Git on their server, but want to benefit from using git, to do so.

It was created by Alexandru Voica during his studies at University Politehnica of Bucharest.

The first version was written in Ruby, but has since been rewritten using Scala. The service is free and available for download on GitHub.

It’s simplicity and great user experience made GitBucket gain a lot of fans in China, Japan, Romania, United Kingdom and India.

6. Gogs

Gogs is an open source self-hosted web interface, simple Git server, lightweight code hosting, and blogging platform.

It’s written in Golang and thus doesn’t need any dependencies which makes it run faster than other similar software.

Gogs uses a modern MVC architecture at its core which means that it’s easy to modify or extend the functionality of Gogs.

It uses the Razor Pages .NET framework for all the views and controls making it easier for ASP.NET developers to get started with Gogs development. The Programming language used for development is Golang – a statically typed programming language created at Google which has become an open source over time.

Gogs is self-hosted, which means it does not require any monthly fees to use the service unlike GitHub or GitLab.

It is written in Go – a modern programming language with speed, security and simplicity in mind unlike C++/Python/Perl. Gogs has a simple UI and is easy to manage, even for people who have never used a version control system before.

Gogs uses only SQLite3 as data store so you can run it from your pocket. The platform is open source so there’s no vendor lock-in – if you don’t like it, change it!

7. Trac

Trac is a web-based open source project management tool.

It is released under the MIT License and runs on Python, Trac is cross platform since it also works on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD.

It is pretty simple to use as well as install that even a person with basic computer skills can do it.

A number of organizations have embraced it as a bug tracking system for both free and open-source software as well as proprietary projects and products.

8. Phabricator

Phabricator is a software development platform that provides for the collaborative work on open source software.

It’s mainly used by organizations like Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, and Facebook to collaborate on projects like Firefox, Wikipedia, and React.

The software is written in PHP and supports both HTTP and web sockets. There are basically three components: you have to maintain a collection of repositories; applications; and services.

Applications usually utilize repositories to store code, while services typically read from repositories and write information into other repositories.

9. AWS CodeCommit

AWS CodeCommit is a fully managed source control service that makes it easy for companies to host secure and highly scalable private git repositories.

AWS CodeCommit eliminates the need to operate your own source control server or worry about scaling its capacity to match your needs.

With AWS CodeCommit, you can just focus on writing code.

So these are the few best GitHub alternatives for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Source Code Repository?

A source code repository is a collection of versions of a project, a library, or an application’s source documents.

What are the Benefits of Source Code Repository?

Some of the benefits are:

– You can choose whichever repository you want.
– You will be able to find the code for your project quickly and easily.
– Be more productive by working with others on a single project.
– Collaborate with people from all over the world without any hassle.
– Develop more because you have access to all the resources of a company.
– Improve your reputation, once you create an open source project, other people will be able to see your code and appreciate it.
– Share knowledge by giving back to the community developing open source software.
– Spend less time on mundane tasks and more time on what matters.

Why you should use Source Code Repository?

Source Code Repository is the place where you can store your code for future use.

It’s like an archive or backup that can store old, outdated or unused code that you might need again in the future.

The process of storing code into a repository is called version control. Having a version control system for your projects ensures that you have a complete copy of the original project to go back to if anything goes wrong.

It also means that someone else can work on it from any computer and update the code but they will still be working on the same file. This is great for team collaboration.

How to select a best Source Code Repository?

There are several factors that need to be taken into account when selecting a Source Code Repository.

One of these is the type of code that needs to be archived. The size of the project might also affect this decision. How important is traceability? What kind of access restrictions are there? What level of privacy is required? Other considerations depend on what kind of repository you’re using, including cost and how it integrates with other systems like your version control system.