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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Code Collaboration
  4. Code Collaboration Version Control
  5. GitHub vs GitLab vs Gitea

GitHub vs GitLab vs Gitea

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

GitHub
GitHub
Stacks295.6K
Followers259.0K
Votes10.4K
GitLab
GitLab
Stacks63.4K
Followers54.5K
Votes2.5K
GitHub Stars0
Forks0
Gitea
Gitea
Stacks323
Followers448
Votes123
GitHub Stars51.8K
Forks6.2K

GitHub vs GitLab vs Gitea: What are the differences?

Introduction:

GitHub, GitLab, and Gitea are popular web-based Git repository hosting services that offer version control, collaboration, and project management features. While all three platforms share similarities, there are key differences that set them apart. Here are the six main differences between GitHub, GitLab, and Gitea:

  1. Hosting and Ownership: GitHub is a cloud-based service owned by Microsoft, offering both cloud-hosted and self-hosted options for Git repositories. GitLab, on the other hand, provides both cloud-hosted and self-hosted options with the added benefit of being open-source. Gitea is a community-driven, lightweight self-hosted Git service.

  2. Pricing and Plans: GitHub offers different pricing plans depending on the features required, including free options for public repositories. GitLab, on the other hand, offers a similar pricing structure but has a free plan that includes more features compared to GitHub. Gitea is entirely free and open-source.

  3. Deployment Options: GitHub is typically used as a cloud-hosted solution, making it easy to set up and get started quickly. GitLab, on the other hand, provides both cloud-hosted and self-hosted options, giving users more flexibility in terms of deployment. Gitea is primarily focused on self-hosted deployments, making it suitable for those who prefer to have complete control over their infrastructure.

  4. Integrated CI/CD: GitLab offers integrated Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) tools, which allow developers to automate various stages of the software development lifecycle. GitHub also offers CI/CD functionalities through its Actions feature, but they are not as integrated as GitLab. Gitea, however, does not have built-in CI/CD capabilities and relies on external tools for this functionality.

  5. Project Management Features: GitLab provides robust project management features such as issue tracking, kanban boards, and time tracking, making it suitable for Agile and Scrum project management methodologies. GitHub also offers similar project management features but with a slightly simpler interface. Gitea, on the other hand, focuses primarily on code hosting and collaboration, lacking extensive project management capabilities.

  6. Community and Ecosystem: Over the years, GitHub has built a large and active community of developers, which leads to a vibrant ecosystem with a wide range of integrations, plugins, and third-party tools. GitLab has a growing community and ecosystem, parallel to GitHub, but it may not have the same level of integration options. Gitea, being relatively new and lightweight, has a smaller community and ecosystem compared to GitHub and GitLab.

In summary, GitHub, GitLab, and Gitea differ in terms of ownership, pricing, deployment options, integrated CI/CD, project management features, and community/ecosystem. The choice between these platforms depends on individual needs, preferences, and the scale of the project.

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Advice on GitHub, GitLab, Gitea

Anonymous
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!

624k views624k
Comments
Phillip
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
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
GitHub
GitLab
GitLab
Gitea
Gitea

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.

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.

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.

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
Manage git repositories with fine grained access controls that keep your code secure;Perform code reviews and enhance collaboration with merge requests;Each project can also have an issue tracker and a wiki;Used by more than 100,000 organizations, GitLab is the most popular solution to manage git repositories on-premises;Completely free and open source (MIT Expat license);Powered by Ruby on Rails
-
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
0
GitHub Stars
51.8K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
0
GitHub Forks
6.2K
Stacks
295.6K
Stacks
63.4K
Stacks
323
Followers
259.0K
Followers
54.5K
Followers
448
Votes
10.4K
Votes
2.5K
Votes
123
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
  • 508
    Self hosted
  • 431
    Free
  • 339
    Has community edition
  • 242
    Easy setup
  • 240
    Familiar interface
Cons
  • 28
    Slow ui performance
  • 9
    Introduce breaking bugs every release
  • 6
    Insecure (no published IP list for whitelisting)
  • 2
    Built-in Docker Registry
  • 1
    Review Apps feature
Pros
  • 24
    Self-hosted
  • 16
    Lightweight
  • 15
    Free
  • 12
    Simple
  • 9
    Multiple code maintainers
Cons
  • 3
    Community-fork of Gogs
  • 0
    Easy Windows authentication is not supported
Integrations
Grove
Grove
Lighthouse
Lighthouse
Airbrake
Airbrake
Codeship
Codeship
Bugsnag
Bugsnag
BugHerd
BugHerd
Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code
HipChat
HipChat
CopperEgg
CopperEgg
Nitrous.IO
Nitrous.IO
No integrations available
Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi
DingTalk
DingTalk
Discord
Discord
OpenLDAP
OpenLDAP
Drone.io
Drone.io
Jenkins
Jenkins
Vagrant
Vagrant
MySQL
MySQL
SQLite
SQLite
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL

What are some alternatives to GitHub, GitLab, Gitea?

Bitbucket

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.

RhodeCode

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

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

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.

Upsource

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

Beanstalk

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

GitBucket

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

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

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.

GitHub Enterprise

GitHub Enterprise

GitHub Enterprise lets developers use the tools they love across the development process with support for popular IDEs, continuous integration tools, and hundreds of third party apps and services.

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