Overview

GitHub

Stacks296.5K

Followers259.0K

Votes10.3K

Bitbucket

Stacks41.4K

Followers33.4K

Votes2.8K

Perforce

Stacks83

Followers113

Votes9

Bitbucket vs GitHub vs Perforce: What are the differences?

Introduction

Git is a distributed version control system (VCS) that allows multiple developers to collaborate on a codebase. There are several popular hosting platforms for Git repositories, including Bitbucket, GitHub, and Perforce. In this Markdown document, we will compare the key differences between Bitbucket and GitHub, as well as Perforce.

Pricing Model: Bitbucket offers free plans for both private and public repositories, making it an attractive choice for small teams and open-source projects. Meanwhile, GitHub offers free plans for public repositories, but charges for private repositories. Perforce, on the other hand, has a more complex pricing model and typically caters to larger enterprises with advanced collaboration and integration needs.
Integration and Ecosystem: GitHub has a larger developer ecosystem and a wide range of integrations with tools and services commonly used in the software development process. This includes CI/CD platforms, project management tools, code review tools, and more. Bitbucket also provides integrations, but its ecosystem is smaller compared to GitHub. Perforce, being a more comprehensive solution, offers a broad set of integrations, particularly with enterprise-scale development tools and systems.
Accessibility and User Interface: Both Bitbucket and GitHub have user-friendly web interfaces that allow for easy code browsing, pull request reviews, and repository management. However, GitHub's interface is often considered more intuitive and visually appealing. Perforce, on the other hand, provides a more feature-rich desktop client, serving the needs of developers who prefer a locally installed application for managing their repositories.
Code Review and Collaboration Features: GitHub has robust code review features, including the ability to have discussions inline with code changes and provide feedback. It also supports pull requests, which simplify the process of reviewing and merging code changes. Bitbucket offers similar functionality, but its code review capabilities are not as extensive as GitHub's. Perforce, being primarily an enterprise-grade solution, provides advanced code review and collaboration features, often tailored to the specific requirements of large development teams.
Branching and Workflow: While both Bitbucket and GitHub support standard Git branching models, GitHub has a more streamlined workflow with features like branch protection rules, which enforce quality control measures before code is merged. Bitbucket also offers branching and workflow capabilities but may require some additional configurations. Perforce, with its roots in centralized version control systems, provides branching and workflow options more aligned with traditional software development methodologies.
Additional Version Control Capabilities: GitHub provides a wide range of features built on top of Git, such as GitHub Actions for CI/CD, GitHub Packages for package registry, and GitHub Pages for hosting websites directly from repositories. Bitbucket offers similar capabilities but with fewer options and integrations. Perforce, being a more comprehensive solution, provides additional capabilities like file locking, which can help manage conflicts in large development teams.

In summary, Bitbucket and GitHub are two popular Git hosting platforms, each with its own strengths. Bitbucket focuses on affordability, simplicity, and easy integration with Jira, while GitHub offers a larger ecosystem, advanced code review features, and additional tools. Perforce, on the other hand, caters to enterprise-scale development teams with its comprehensive solution and additional version control capabilities tailored to larger organizations.

Advice on GitHub, Bitbucket, Perforce

Anonymous

May 25, 2020

Decided

Gitlab as A LOT of features that GitHub and Azure DevOps are missing. Even if both GH and Azure are backed by Microsoft, GitLab being open source has a faster upgrade rate and the hosted by gitlab.com solution seems more appealing than anything else! Quick win: the UI is way better and the Pipeline is way easier to setup on GitLab!

623k views623k

Comments

Phillip

Developer at Coach Align

Mar 18, 2021

Decided

Both of us are far more familiar with GitHub than Gitlab, and so for our first big project together decided to go with what we know here instead of figuring out something new (there are so many new things we need to figure out, might as well reduce the number of optionally new things, lol). We aren't currently taking advantage of GitHub Actions or very many other built-in features (besides Dependabot) but luckily it integrates very well with the other services we're using.

409k views409k

Comments

Weverton

CTO at SourceLevel

Jul 28, 2020

Review

Using an inclusive language is crucial for fostering a diverse culture. Git has changed the naming conventions to be more language-inclusive, and so you should change. Our development tools, like GitHub and GitLab, already supports the change.

SourceLevel deals very nicely with repositories that changed the master branch to a more appropriate word. Besides, you can use the grep linter the look for exclusive terms contained in the source code.

As the inclusive language gap may happen in other aspects of our lives, have you already thought about them?

944k views944k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

GitHub	Bitbucket	Perforce
GitHub is the best place to share code with friends, co-workers, classmates, and complete strangers. Over three million people use GitHub to build amazing things together.	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.	Visibility, access control, workflow and code management for Git environments. Flexibility of collaborating on the same codebase and code reviews using any combination of Perforce and Git workflows and tools without compromise.
Command instructions; Source browser; Git powered wikis; Integrated issue tracking; Code reviews with inline comments; Compare view; Newsfeed; Followers; Developer profiles; Autocompletion for @username mentions	Unlimited private repositories, charged per user;Best-in-class Jira integration;Built-in CI/CD;Deployment visibility;Embedded Trello boards; Command Instructions;Source Browser;Git Powered Wikis;Integrated Issue Tracking;Code reviews with inline comments;Compare View;Newsfeed;Followers;Developer Profiles;Autocompletion for @username mentions;Support for Mercurial	Version Control; Application Lifecycle Management; Static Code Analysis for C, C++, C#, and Java; Codeless Selenium Test Automation; Open Source Support; Enterprise PHP Development
Statistics
Stacks 296.5K	Stacks 41.4K	Stacks 83
Followers 259.0K	Followers 33.4K	Followers 113
Votes 10.3K	Votes 2.8K	Votes 9
Pros & Cons
Pros 1773 Open source friendly 1463 Easy source control 1254 Nice UI 1137 Great for team collaboration 868 Easy setup Cons 56 Owned by micrcosoft 38 Expensive for lone developers that want private repos 15 Relatively slow product/feature release cadence 10 API scoping could be better 9 Only 3 collaborators for private repos	Pros 905 Free private repos 397 Simple setup 349 Nice ui and tools 342 Unlimited private repositories 240 Affordable git hosting Cons 19 Not much community activity 17 Difficult to review prs because of confusing ui 15 Quite buggy 10 Managed by enterprise Java company 8 CI tool is not free of charge	Pros 3 Powerful 3 Great for Enterprise level use 2 Robust 1 Scalable
Integrations
Grove Lighthouse Airbrake Codeship Bugsnag BugHerd Visual Studio Code HipChat CopperEgg Nitrous.IO	Git AWS Cloud9 Sentry Microsoft Azure npm Trello Slack Confluence Docker Jira	Git

What are some alternatives to GitHub, Bitbucket, Perforce?

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.

RhodeCode

RhodeCode provides centralized control over distributed code repositories. Developers get code review tools and custom APIs that work in Mercurial, Git & SVN. Firms get unified security and user control so that their CTOs can sleep at night

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.

Gogs

The goal of this project is to make the easiest, fastest and most painless way to set up a self-hosted Git service. With Go, this can be done in independent binary distribution across ALL platforms that Go supports, including Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

Gitea

Git with a cup of tea! Painless self-hosted all-in-one software development service, including Git hosting, code review, team collaboration, package registry and CI/CD. It published under the MIT license.

Upsource

Upsource summarizes recent changes in your repository, showing commit messages, authors, quick diffs, links to detailed diff views and associated code reviews. A commit graph helps visualize the history of commits, branches and merges in your repository.

Beanstalk

A single process to commit code, review with the team, and deploy the final result to your customers.

GitBucket

GitBucket provides a Github-like UI and features such as Git repository hosting via HTTP and SSH, repository viewer, issues, wiki and pull request.

BinTray

Bintray offers developers the fastest way to publish and consume OSS software releases. With Bintray's full self-service platform developers have full control over their published software and how it is distributed to the world.

Gitolite

Gitolite allows you to setup git hosting on a central server, with fine-grained access control and many more powerful features. Gitolite is an access control layer on top of git.