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Best Open-Source Alternatives to GitHub

GitHub is owned by Microsoft. Open-source alternatives exist for self-hosting your code (sovereignty, privacy) and to avoid MS lock-in.

TL;DR — top pick

Gitea

Gitea is the lightweight self-host GitHub clone. Issues, PRs, wiki, releases, packages, actions.

github.com/go-gitea/gitea

All 3 alternatives ranked

#1

Gitea

MITSelf-hostable★ ~47k
github.com/go-gitea/gitea

Gitea is the lightweight self-host GitHub clone. Issues, PRs, wiki, releases, packages, actions. Single Go binary, runs anywhere, sips RAM. The dominant pick for personal/team self-hosted git.

Pick Gitea if

You want a self-hosted GitHub for your team without the resource overhead of GitLab.

Skip if

You need CI/CD at GitLab's scale or built-in DevSecOps features.

#2

Forgejo

MITSelf-hostable★ ~4k
github.com/forgejo/forgejo

Forgejo is the community fork of Gitea (forked over governance concerns). 99% feature-compatible. Pick Forgejo if you care about the more open governance model; pick Gitea if you want the larger ecosystem.

Pick Forgejo if

You care about transparent, community-led governance for your self-hosted git.

Skip if

You want the larger ecosystem — Gitea has more plugins/themes.

#3

GitLab CE

MITSelf-hostable★ ~24k
github.com/gitlab-org/gitlab

GitLab Community Edition is the heaviest pick — full DevOps platform with CI/CD, container registry, security scanning, monitoring. Run it if you need the whole stack; otherwise it's overkill.

Pick GitLab CE if

You need GitLab's full DevOps suite (CI/CD, registries, monitoring) and have ops capacity to run it.

Skip if

You just need git hosting — Gitea is 100× lighter.

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Best Open-Source GitHub Alternatives on GitHub (2026) — Gitea & more — StackPicks — StackPicks