What is GitHub and what are its top alternatives?
Top Alternatives to GitHub
- GitLab
GitLab offers git repository management, code reviews, issue tracking, activity feeds and wikis. Enterprises install GitLab on-premise and connect it with LDAP and Active Directory servers for secure authentication and authorization. A single GitLab server can handle more than 25,000 users but it is also possible to create a high availability setup with multiple active servers. ...
- Bitbucket
Bitbucket gives teams one place to plan projects, collaborate on code, test and deploy, all with free private Git repositories. Teams choose Bitbucket because it has a superior Jira integration, built-in CI/CD, & is free for up to 5 users. ...
- AWS CodeCommit
CodeCommit eliminates the need to operate your own source control system or worry about scaling its infrastructure. You can use CodeCommit to securely store anything from source code to binaries, and it works seamlessly with your existing Git tools. ...
- Git
Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. ...
- SVN (Subversion)
Subversion exists to be universally recognized and adopted as an open-source, centralized version control system characterized by its reliability as a safe haven for valuable data; the simplicity of its model and usage; and its ability to support the needs of a wide variety of users and projects, from individuals to large-scale enterprise operations. ...
- Azure DevOps
Azure DevOps provides unlimited private Git hosting, cloud build for continuous integration, agile planning, and release management for continuous delivery to the cloud and on-premises. Includes broad IDE support. ...
- Jira
Jira's secret sauce is the way it simplifies the complexities of software development into manageable units of work. Jira comes out-of-the-box with everything agile teams need to ship value to customers faster. ...
- Git Flow
It provides excellent command line help and output. It is a merge based solution. It doesn't rebase feature branches. ...
GitHub alternatives & related posts
- Self hosted507
- Free429
- Has community edition339
- Easy setup242
- Familiar interface240
- Includes many features, including ci137
- Nice UI113
- Good integration with gitlabci84
- Simple setup57
- Free private repository34
- Has an official mobile app34
- Continuous Integration31
- Open source, great ui (like github)22
- Slack Integration18
- Full CI flow14
- Free and unlimited private git repos11
- User, group, and project access management is simple10
- All in one (Git, CI, Agile..)9
- Built-in CI8
- Intuitive UI8
- Full DevOps suite with Git6
- Both public and private Repositories6
- Integrated Docker Registry5
- Build/pipeline definition alongside code5
- So easy to use5
- CI5
- It's powerful source code management tool5
- Unlimited free repos & collaborators4
- Security and Stable4
- On-premises4
- It's fully integrated4
- Excellent4
- Issue system4
- Mattermost Chat client4
- Dockerized4
- Great for team collaboration3
- Free private repos3
- Because is the best remote host for git repositories3
- Low maintenance cost due omnibus-deployment3
- Not Microsoft Owned3
- Built-in Docker Registry3
- Opensource3
- I like the its runners and executors feature3
- Multilingual interface2
- Powerful software planning and maintaining tools2
- Review Apps feature2
- Kubernetes integration with GitLab CI2
- One-click install through DigitalOcean2
- Powerful Continuous Integration System2
- Native CI2
- HipChat intergration2
- Many private repo2
- Kubernetes Integration2
- Published IP list for whitelisting (gl-infra#434)2
- Wounderful2
- Beautiful2
- Groups of groups2
- The dashboard with deployed environments2
- It includes everything I need, all packaged with docker2
- Supports Radius/Ldap & Browser Code Edits1
- Slow ui performance28
- Introduce breaking bugs every release8
- Insecure (no published IP list for whitelisting)6
- Built-in Docker Registry2
- Review Apps feature1
related GitLab posts
I have mixed feelings on GitHub as a product and our use of it for the Zulip open source project. On the one hand, I do feel that being on GitHub helps people discover Zulip, because we have enough stars (etc.) that we rank highly among projects on the platform. and there is a definite benefit for lowering barriers to contribution (which is important to us) that GitHub has such a dominant position in terms of what everyone has accounts with.
But even ignoring how one might feel about their new corporate owner (MicroSoft), in a lot of ways GitHub is a bad product for open source projects. Years after the "Dear GitHub" letter, there are still basic gaps in its issue tracker:
- You can't give someone permission to label/categorize issues without full write access to a project (including ability to merge things to master, post releases, etc.).
- You can't let anyone with a GitHub account self-assign issues to themselves.
- Many more similar issues.
It's embarrassing, because I've talked to GitHub product managers at various open source events about these things for 3 years, and they always agree the thing is important, but then nothing ever improves in the Issues product. Maybe the new management at MicroSoft will fix their product management situation, but if not, I imagine we'll eventually do the migration to GitLab.
We have a custom bot project, http://github.com/zulip/zulipbot, to deal with some of these issues where possible, and every other large project we talk to does the same thing, more or less.
We use GitLab CI because of the great native integration as a part of the GitLab framework and the linting-capabilities it offers. The visualization of complex pipelines and the embedding within the project overview made Gitlab CI even more convenient. We use it for all projects, all deployments and as a part of GitLab Pages.
While we initially used the Shell-executor, we quickly switched to the Docker-executor and use it exclusively now.
We formerly used Jenkins but preferred to handle everything within GitLab . Aside from the unification of our infrastructure another motivation was the "configuration-in-file"-approach, that Gitlab CI offered, while Jenkins support of this concept was very limited and users had to resort to using the webinterface. Since the file is included within the repository, it is also version controlled, which was a huge plus for us.
Bitbucket
- Free private repos905
- Simple setup397
- Nice ui and tools348
- Unlimited private repositories341
- Affordable git hosting240
- Integrates with many apis and services123
- Reliable uptime119
- Nice gui87
- Pull requests and code reviews85
- Very customisable58
- Mercurial repositories16
- SourceTree integration14
- JIRA integration12
- Track every commit to an issue in JIRA10
- Deployment hooks8
- Best free alternative to Github8
- Compatible with Mac and Windows7
- Automatically share repositories with all your teammates7
- Price6
- Source Code Insight6
- Login with Google5
- Create a wiki5
- Approve pull request button5
- Customizable pipelines4
- #2 Atlassian Product after JIRA4
- Continuous Integration and Delivery3
- Unlimited Private Repos at no cost3
- Also supports Mercurial3
- Issues tracker2
- IAM2
- Academic license program2
- Multilingual interface2
- Teamcity2
- Open source friendly2
- IAM integration2
- Mercurial Support2
- Not much community activity19
- Difficult to review prs because of confusing ui17
- Quite buggy15
- Managed by enterprise Java company10
- CI tool is not free of charge8
- Complexity with rights management7
- Only 5 collaborators for private repos6
- Slow performance4
- No AWS Codepipelines integration2
- No more Mercurial repositories1
- No server side git-hook support1
related Bitbucket posts
I use GitLab when building side-projects and MVPs. The interface and interactions are close enough to those of GitHub to prevent cognitive switching costs between professional and personal projects hosted on different services.
GitLab also provides a suite of tools including issue/project management, CI/CD with GitLab CI, and validation/landing pages with GitLab Pages. With everything in one place, on an #OpenSourceCloud GitLab makes it easy for me to manage much larger projects on my own, than would be possible with other solutions or tools.
It's petty I know, but I can also read the GitLab code diffs far more easily than diffs on GitHub or Bitbucket...they just look better in my opinion.
A bit difference in GitHub and GitLab though both are Version Control repository management services which provides key component in the software development workflow. A decision of choosing GitHub over GitLab is major leap extension from code management, to deployment and monitoring alongside looking beyond the code base hosting provided best fitted tools for developer communities.
- Authentication stages - With GitLab you can set and modify people’s permissions according to their role. In GitHub, you can decide if someone gets a read or write access to a repository.
- Built-In Continuous Integrations - GitLab offers its very own CI for free. No need to use an external CI service. And if you are already used to an external CI, you can obviously integrate with Jenkins, etc whereas GitHub offers various 3rd party integrations – such as Travis CI, CircleCI or Codeship – for running and testing your code. However, there’s no built-in CI solution at the moment.
- Import/Export Resources - GitLab offers detailed documentation on how to import your data from other vendors – such as GitHub, Bitbucket to GitLab. GitHub, on the other hand, does not offer such detailed documentation for the most common git repositories. However, GitHub offers to use GitHub Importer if you have your source code in Subversion, Mercurial, TFS and others.
Also when it comes to exporting data, GitLab seems to do a pretty solid job, offering you the ability to export your projects including the following data:
- Wiki and project repositories
- Project uploads
- The configuration including webhooks and services
- Issues with comments, merge requests with diffs and comments, labels, milestones, snippets, and other project entities.
GitHub, on the other hand, seems to be more restrictive when it comes to export features of existing GitHub repositories. * Integrations - #githubmarketplace gives you an essence to have multiple and competitive integrations whereas you will find less in the GitLab.
So go ahead with better understanding.
AWS CodeCommit
- Free private repos44
- IAM integration26
- Pay-As-You-Go Pricing24
- Amazon feels the most Secure20
- Repo data encrypted at rest19
- Faster deployments when using other AWS services11
- I can make repository by myself if I have AWS account11
- AWS CodePipeline integration8
- Codebuild integration6
- Does not support web hooks yet! :(6
- Cost Effective4
- No Git LFS! Dealbreaker for me2
- Integrated with AWS Ecosystem2
- Elastic Beanstalk Integration2
- Integration via SQS/SNS for events (replaces webhooks)1
- IAM1
- Open source friendly1
- Only US Region1
- Available in Ireland (Dublin) region1
- CodeDeploy Integration1
- Issue tracker1
- CodeCommit Trigger for an AWS Lambda Function1
- Ui0
- UI sucks12
- SLOW4
- No Issue Tracker3
- Bad diffing/no blame2
- NO LFS support2
- No fork2
- No webhooks2
- Can't download file from UI1
- Only time based triggers1
- Accident-prone UI0
related AWS CodeCommit posts
Hi, I need advice. In my project, we are using Bitbucket hosted on-prem, Jenkins, and Jira. Also, we have restrictions not to use any plugins for code review, code quality, code security, etc., with bitbucket. Now we want to migrate to AWS CodeCommit, which would mean that we can use, let's say, Amazon CodeGuru for code reviews and move to AWS CodeBuild and AWS CodePipeline for build automation in the future rather than using Jenkins.
Now I want advice on below.
- Is it a good idea to migrate from Bitbucket to AWS Codecommit?
- If we want to integrate Jira with AWS Codecommit, then how can we do this? If a developer makes any changes in Jira, then a build should be triggered automatically in AWS and create a Jira ticket if the build fails. So, how can we achieve this?
Mojolicious Perl Redmine Redis AWS CodeCommit Amazon SES PostgreSQL Postman Docker jQuery VirtualBox Sublime Text GitHub Git GitLab CI @DBIx::Class @metacpan @TheBat
- Distributed version control system1.4K
- Efficient branching and merging1.1K
- Fast959
- Open source845
- Better than svn726
- Great command-line application368
- Simple306
- Free291
- Easy to use232
- Does not require server222
- Distributed27
- Small & Fast22
- Feature based workflow18
- Staging Area15
- Most wide-spread VSC13
- Role-based codelines11
- Disposable Experimentation11
- Frictionless Context Switching7
- Data Assurance6
- Efficient5
- Just awesome4
- Github integration3
- Easy branching and merging3
- Compatible2
- Flexible2
- Possible to lose history and commits2
- Rebase supported natively; reflog; access to plumbing1
- Light1
- Team Integration1
- Fast, scalable, distributed revision control system1
- Easy1
- Flexible, easy, Safe, and fast1
- CLI is great, but the GUI tools are awesome1
- It's what you do1
- Phinx0
- Hard to learn16
- Inconsistent command line interface11
- Easy to lose uncommitted work9
- Worst documentation ever possibly made7
- Awful merge handling5
- Unexistent preventive security flows3
- Rebase hell3
- When --force is disabled, cannot rebase2
- Ironically even die-hard supporters screw up badly2
- Doesn't scale for big data1
related Git posts
Our whole DevOps stack consists of the following tools:
- GitHub (incl. GitHub Pages/Markdown for Documentation, GettingStarted and HowTo's) for collaborative review and code management tool
- Respectively Git as revision control system
- SourceTree as Git GUI
- Visual Studio Code as IDE
- CircleCI for continuous integration (automatize development process)
- Prettier / TSLint / ESLint as code linter
- SonarQube as quality gate
- Docker as container management (incl. Docker Compose for multi-container application management)
- VirtualBox for operating system simulation tests
- Kubernetes as cluster management for docker containers
- Heroku for deploying in test environments
- nginx as web server (preferably used as facade server in production environment)
- SSLMate (using OpenSSL) for certificate management
- Amazon EC2 (incl. Amazon S3) for deploying in stage (production-like) and production environments
- PostgreSQL as preferred database system
- Redis as preferred in-memory database/store (great for caching)
The main reason we have chosen Kubernetes over Docker Swarm is related to the following artifacts:
- Key features: Easy and flexible installation, Clear dashboard, Great scaling operations, Monitoring is an integral part, Great load balancing concepts, Monitors the condition and ensures compensation in the event of failure.
- Applications: An application can be deployed using a combination of pods, deployments, and services (or micro-services).
- Functionality: Kubernetes as a complex installation and setup process, but it not as limited as Docker Swarm.
- Monitoring: It supports multiple versions of logging and monitoring when the services are deployed within the cluster (Elasticsearch/Kibana (ELK), Heapster/Grafana, Sysdig cloud integration).
- Scalability: All-in-one framework for distributed systems.
- Other Benefits: Kubernetes is backed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), huge community among container orchestration tools, it is an open source and modular tool that works with any OS.
Application and Data: Since my personal website ( https://alisoueidan.com ) is a SPA I've chosen to use Vue.js, as a framework to create it. After a short skeptical phase I immediately felt in love with the single file component concept! I also used vuex for state management, which makes working with several components, which are communicating with each other even more fun and convenient to use. Of course, using Vue requires using JavaScript as well, since it is the basis of it.
For markup and style, I used Pug and Sass, since they’re the perfect match to me. I love the clean and strict syntax of both of them and even more that their structure is almost similar. Also, both of them come with an expanded functionality such as mixins, loops and so on related to their “siblings” (HTML and CSS). Both of them require nesting and prevent untidy code, which can be a huge advantage when working in teams. I used JSON to store data (since the data quantity on my website is moderate) – JSON works also good in combo with Pug, using for loops, based on the JSON Objects for example.
To send my contact form I used PHP, since sending emails using PHP is still relatively convenient, simple and easy done.
DevOps: Of course, I used Git to do my version management (which I even do in smaller projects like my website just have an additional backup of my code). On top of that I used GitHub since it now supports private repository for free accounts (which I am using for my own). I use Babel to use ES6 functionality such as arrow functions and so on, and still don’t losing cross browser compatibility.
Side note: I used npm for package management. 🎉
*Business Tools: * I use Asana to organize my project. This is a big advantage to me, even if I work alone, since “private” projects can get interrupted for some time. By using Asana I still know (even after month of not touching a project) what I’ve done, on which task I was at last working on and what still is to do. Working in Teams (for enterprise I’d take on Jira instead) of course Asana is a Tool which I really love to use as well. All the graphics on my website are SVG which I have created with Adobe Illustrator and adjusted within the SVG code or by using JavaScript or CSS (SASS).
- Easy to use20
- Simple code versioning13
- User/Access Management5
- Complicated code versionioning by Subversion3
- Free2
- Branching and tagging use tons of disk space7
related SVN (Subversion) posts
I use Visual Studio Code because at this time is a mature software and I can do practically everything using it.
It's free and open source: The project is hosted on GitHub and it’s free to download, fork, modify and contribute to the project.
Multi-platform: You can download binaries for different platforms, included Windows (x64), MacOS and Linux (
.rpm
and.deb
packages)LightWeight: It runs smoothly in different devices. It has an average memory and CPU usage. Starts almost immediately and it’s very stable.
Extended language support: Supports by default the majority of the most used languages and syntax like JavaScript, HTML, C#, Swift, Java, PHP, Python and others. Also, VS Code supports different file types associated to projects like
.ini
,.properties
, XML and JSON files.Integrated tools: Includes an integrated terminal, debugger, problem list and console output inspector. The project navigator sidebar is simple and powerful: you can manage your files and folders with ease. The command palette helps you find commands by text. The search widget has a powerful auto-complete feature to search and find your files.
Extensible and configurable: There are many extensions available for every language supported, including syntax highlighters, IntelliSense and code completion, and debuggers. There are also extension to manage application configuration and architecture like Docker and Jenkins.
Integrated with Git: You can visually manage your project repositories, pull, commit and push your changes, and easy conflict resolution.( there is support for SVN (Subversion) users by plugin)
I use Git instead of SVN (Subversion) because it allows us to scale our development team. At any given time, the Zulip open source project has hundreds of open pull requests from tens of contributors, each in various stages of the pipeline. Git's workflow makes it very easy to context switch between different feature branches.
Azure DevOps
- Complete and powerful56
- Huge extension ecosystem32
- Azure integration27
- Flexible and powerful26
- One Stop Shop For Build server, Project Mgt, CDCI26
- Everything I need. Simple and intuitive UI15
- Support Open Source13
- Integrations8
- GitHub Integration7
- One 4 all6
- Cost free for Stakeholders6
- Project Mgmt Features6
- Crap5
- Runs in the cloud5
- Agent On-Premise(Linux - Windows)3
- Aws integration2
- Link Test Cases to Stories2
- Jenkins Integration2
- GCP Integration1
- Still dependant on C# for agents8
- Many in devops disregard MS altogether5
- Capacity across cross functional teams not visibile4
- Not a requirements management tool4
- Half Baked4
- Jack of all trades, master of none3
- Poor Jenkins integration3
- Tedious for test plan/case creation2
related Azure DevOps posts
Visual Studio Azure DevOps Azure Functions Azure Websites #Azure #AzureKeyVault #AzureAD #AzureApps
#Azure Cloud Since Amazon is potentially our competitor then we need a different cloud vendor, also our programmers are microsoft oriented so the choose were obviously #Azure for us.
Azure DevOps Because we need to be able to develop a neww pipeline into Azure environment ina few minutes.
Azure Kubernetes Service We already in #Azure , also need to use K8s , so let's use AKS as it's a manged Kubernetes in the #Azure
Secure Membership Web API backed by SQL Server. This is the backing API to store additional profile and complex membership metadata outside of an Azure AD B2C provider. The front-end using the Azure AD B2C to allow 3rd party trusted identity providers to authenticate. This API provides a way to add and manage more complex permission structures than can easily be maintained in Azure AD.
We have .Net developers and an Azure infrastructure environment using server-less functions, logic apps and SaaS where ever possible. For this service I opted to keep it as a classic WebAPI project and deployed to AppService.
- Trusted Authentication Provider: @AzureActiveDirectoryB2C
- Frameworks: .NET Core
- Language: C# , Microsoft SQL Server , JavaScript
- IDEs: Visual Studio Code , Visual Studio
- Libraries: jQuery @EntityFramework, @AutoMapper, @FeatureToggle , @Swashbuckle
- Database: @SqlAzure
- Source Control: Git
- Build and Release Pipelines: Azure DevOps
- Test tools: Postman , Newman
- Test framework: @nUnit, @moq
- Infrastructure: @AzureAppService, @AzureAPIManagement
Jira
- Powerful310
- Flexible254
- Easy separation of projects149
- Run in the cloud113
- Code integration105
- Easy to use57
- Run on your own52
- Great customization39
- Easy Workflow Configuration38
- REST API27
- Great Agile Management tool12
- Integrates with virtually everything7
- Confluence6
- Complicated5
- Sentry Issues Integration3
- Rather expensive8
- Large memory requirement5
- Slow2
- Cloud or Datacenter only1
related Jira posts
So I am a huge fan of JIRA like #massive I used it for many many years, and really loved it, used it personally and at work. I would suggest every new workplace that I worked at to switch to JIRA instead of what I was using.
When I started at #StackShare we were using a Trello #Kanban board and I was so shocked at how easy the workflow was to follow, create new tasks and get tasks QA'd and deployed. What was so great about this was it didn't come with all the complexity of JIRA. Like setting up a project, user rules etc. You are able to hit the ground running with Trello and get tasks started right away without being overwhelmed with the complexity of options in JIRA
With a few TrelloPowerUps we were easily able to add GitHub integration and storyPoints to our cards and thats all we needed to get a really nice agile workflow going.
I'm not saying that JIRA is not useful, I can see larger companies being able to use the JIRA features and have the time to go through all the complex setup to get a really good workflow going. But for smaller #Startups that want to hit the ground running Trello for me is the way to go.
In saying that what I would love Trello to implement is to allow me to create custom fields. Right now we just have a Description
field. So I am adding User Stories
& How To Test
in the Markdown of the Description
if I could have these as custom fields then my #Agile workflow would be complete.
#StackDecisionsLaunch
Last time we shared there information about our decision about using YouTrack over Jira actually we found much better solution that our team have loved. Linear is a minimalistic issue tracker that integrates well with Sentry, GitHub, Slack and Figma which are our basic tools. I would like to recommend checking out Linear as a potential alternative to "heavy" issue trackers, maybe at enterprises that may not work but when we're a startup that works awesome!