Top 7 GitHub alternatives (2025) | Find your next Git host

Let’s be honest, GitHub is the default for most of us. It’s where we learned to code, and it’s probably where your projects live right now. But maybe you’re starting to get a little restless. Whether it’s concerns over AI scraping your code, the desire for more control with a self-hosted setup, or just finding the pricing doesn’t quite work for your team, the reasons for looking around are piling up.

If that sounds familiar, you’ve landed in the right spot. We’re going to walk through the best GitHub alternatives out there, breaking down what makes each one tick so you and your team can find the right home for your code in 2025.

What are Git hosting platforms?

You can think of a Git hosting platform as a souped-up Dropbox for your code, but that’s really just scratching the surface. At its core, it gives your Git repositories a central home in the cloud, which is what lets your team work on the same project from anywhere in the world.

But modern platforms are so much more. They’re full-blown development hubs with tools for pull requests, code reviews, issue trackers, and even CI/CD pipelines to automate your builds and deployments. It’s where all the action happens.

Our criteria for choosing the best GitHub alternatives

To keep things fair and useful, we judged each platform on the same set of things that actually matter day-to-day. Here’s what we looked at:

Hosting Model

We checked out both cloud-hosted (where they manage everything for you) and self-hosted (where you run it on your own servers) options. The cloud is easy, but self-hosting gives you complete control over your data and security.

Core Features

A solid platform needs good tools for CI/CD, issue tracking, and code reviews. We looked closely at how these features compare, especially since GitHub Actions is a big reason many people stick around.

Pricing

We dug into the free tiers, per-user costs, and whether a truly free and open-source (FOSS) option was available. Nobody likes getting a surprise bill at the end of the month.

Ecosystem & Integrations

Your code host is just one piece of the puzzle. We considered how well each platform plays with the other tools you rely on.

User Experience (UX)

Finally, how does it feel to use? We looked at speed, how intuitive the interface is, and what the community says about things like Gitea’s zippy performance versus GitLab’s reputation for being a bit heavy.

At a glance: Comparing the top GitHub alternatives

For a quick rundown, here’s how our favorite picks compare.

Feature	GitLab	Gitea	Bitbucket	Codeberg	AWS CodeCommit	Azure DevOps Repos	SourceHut
Primary Model	Cloud & Self-Hosted	Self-Hosted	Cloud & Self-Hosted	Cloud (Hosted Forgejo)	Cloud	Cloud	Cloud
Open Source	Open Core	Yes (MIT)	No	Yes (Forgejo)	No	No	Yes (GPLv3)
Built-in CI/CD	Yes (GitLab CI/CD)	Yes (Gitea Actions)	Yes (Pipelines)	Yes (Woodpecker CI)	Yes (via AWS services)	Yes (Azure Pipelines)	Yes (builds.sr.ht)
Free Tier	Yes (Generous)	Yes (FOSS)	Yes (up to 5 users)	Yes (Donation-based)	Yes (up to 5 users)	Yes (up to 5 users)	Yes (limited)
Best For	All-in-one DevOps	Lightweight Self-hosting	Atlassian Ecosystem	FOSS Community	AWS Ecosystem	Microsoft Ecosystem	Minimalists, Email-driven

The 7 best GitHub alternatives in 2025

Alright, let’s get into the details. Here’s a closer look at each platform, including its key features, pros and cons, pricing, and who it’s really for.

1. GitLab

If you’re looking for something that can match GitHub feature-for-feature, GitLab is probably it. Their whole pitch is being a single application for the entire software development lifecycle, bundling everything from planning and source code management to monitoring and security.

• Key Features: A mature and tightly integrated CI/CD system, advanced tools for code review and project management, a built-in container registry, and plenty of security scanning (SAST/DAST) features.

• Pros: It’s a seriously powerful all-in-one platform that can replace several other tools in your stack. Its CI/CD is often considered one of the best out there, and it has strong features for enterprise-level security and compliance.

• Cons: The main knock against GitLab is its appetite for resources. If you decide to self-host, get ready to give it some powerful hardware. The sheer number of features can also be a bit much for smaller teams who just need the basics.

• Pricing:

  • Free: Gives you 5 users, 400 CI/CD minutes/month, and 10 GiB of storage.

  • Premium: $29 per user/month (billed annually). You get faster code reviews, more advanced CI/CD, enterprise agile planning, and 10,000 CI/CD minutes/month.

  • Ultimate: You’ll have to contact sales for pricing. This plan adds advanced security and compliance tools like vulnerability management, dependency scanning, and 50,000 CI/CD minutes/month.

• Best for: Teams and companies that want to bring their entire toolchain under one roof with a single, comprehensive DevOps platform.

The GitLab logo, representing one of the top GitHub alternatives.::

2. Gitea

Gitea is an open-source gem that’s built for speed and simplicity. It’s a community-run fork of Gogs, and its main goal is to be incredibly lightweight and easy to install, giving you the essentials without any bloat.

• Key Features: It uses very few resources (you can run it on a Raspberry Pi!), works on any platform (Linux, macOS, Windows, ARM), and has a built-in package registry. Its CI/CD, Gitea Actions, is also largely compatible with GitHub Actions.

• Pros: The setup is ridiculously easy, and it’s blazing fast. Since it’s fully open-source with an active community, you aren’t locked into a corporate ecosystem. It gives you all the power of a self-hosted Git server without the usual admin headaches.

• Cons: Gitea Actions is good, but the CI/CD and project management tools aren’t quite as polished as what you’ll find in GitLab or Azure DevOps. And, of course, you have to manage your own hosting.

• Pricing:

  • Open Source: Totally free to download and run on your own servers.

  • Enterprise: Gitea Ltd. offers managed cloud hosting and support, starting at $9.50 per user/month.

• Best for: Anyone from solo developers to startups who want total control over their code with a simple, fast, and efficient self-hosted server.

3. Bitbucket

Bitbucket is Atlassian’s take on code hosting, and it’s built for professional teams. Its standout feature, by a long shot, is the seamless integration with the rest of the Atlassian suite, especially Jira, Trello, and Confluence.

• Key Features: Unbeatable Jira and Trello integration, built-in CI/CD with Bitbucket Pipelines, and a very generous free plan for teams up to 5 users.

• Pros: If your team already lives and breathes Jira, Bitbucket makes for a perfectly smooth workflow. You can create branches right from Jira issues, automatically update tickets when pull requests are merged, and see your whole development pipeline without ever leaving your project board. It’s also a great deal for small teams.

• Cons: The user interface can feel a bit sluggish compared to leaner options. Its real power is tied to the Atlassian world; if you don’t use Jira, a lot of the magic is lost.

• Pricing:

  • Free: Up to 5 users, 50 build minutes/month, and 1 GB of LFS storage.

  • Standard: $3.30 per user/month. This bumps you up to 2,500 build minutes/month and 5 GB of LFS storage.

  • Premium: $6.60 per user/month. Adds features like IP allowlisting and required 2FA, plus increases limits to 3,500 build minutes/month and 10 GB of LFS storage.

• Best for: Development teams of any size that are already all-in on the Atlassian ecosystem.

4. Codeberg

Codeberg is a different kind of platform. It’s a non-profit, democratic code host running on Forgejo (a community fork of Gitea). The entire mission is to provide a free, ethical, and non-commercial home for Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects.

• Key Features: It’s built on the fast and lightweight Forgejo software, is staunchly non-commercial and privacy-focused (no tracking or data selling), and is operated by a non-profit in Germany.

• Pros: If you’re passionate about the principles of FOSS, Codeberg is right up your alley. It’s free for open-source projects and is run by its community, not a corporation. This is a platform with a strong ethical backbone.

• Cons: It’s designed specifically for public, open-source work. While it has CI/CD through Woodpecker, the features are still evolving and aren’t as extensive as what the big commercial players offer.

• Pricing: Free to use. The platform runs entirely on community donations.

• Best for: FOSS developers who care deeply about privacy, community governance, and having a truly non-commercial place for their projects.

5. AWS CodeCommit

Note: As of late 2024, AWS CodeCommit is no longer available to new customers, but existing customers can continue to use it.

For teams deep in the Amazon Web Services world, CodeCommit was a natural choice. It’s a managed source control service offering secure and highly scalable private Git repositories that integrate perfectly with other AWS tools.

• Key Features: Native integration with AWS developer services like CodePipeline and CodeBuild, fully managed infrastructure, and strong security through IAM controls and encryption.

• Pros: It was ideal for teams standardized on AWS. It’s very secure, can scale to any size, and the pay-as-you-go pricing could be quite affordable.

• Cons: CodeCommit is really just a raw Git host, not a full collaboration platform. It’s missing the rich web UI, issue tracking, and project management features you’d find almost anywhere else.

• Pricing: The free tier covered 5 active users. After that, it was $1 per month for each extra user, plus standard AWS fees for storage and data transfer.

• Best for: Organizations already using AWS who just needed a simple, secure Git repository service and didn’t mind the lack of a full-featured web interface.

6. Azure DevOps Repos

As a key part of the Azure DevOps suite, Azure Repos offers unlimited free private Git repositories along with powerful, enterprise-focused features for planning, collaborating, and shipping code.

• Key Features: Unlimited private repos, deep integration with Azure Boards for planning and Azure Pipelines for CI/CD, smart semantic code search, and very flexible branch policies to maintain code quality.

• Pros: It’s an excellent, mature, all-in-one solution for enterprise teams, especially those already using Microsoft tools. The free tier for small teams is also surprisingly good.

• Cons: The interface can feel a bit complex and has a more corporate vibe than some of the community-focused platforms. It can be overkill for smaller projects that don’t need all the bells and whistles.

• Pricing:

  • Basic Plan: Free for the first 5 users. Additional users are $6 per user/month. This includes Azure Repos, Boards, and Pipelines.

  • Basic + Test Plans: $52 per user/month. Adds a full suite of test management tools.

• Best for: Enterprise dev teams, especially those working within Microsoft’s cloud and developer ecosystem (Azure, Visual Studio Code, etc.).

7. SourceHut

SourceHut is truly one-of-a-kind. It’s a collection of open-source tools built with the old-school Unix philosophy of simplicity and speed. It’s known for its incredibly fast, no-JavaScript interface and a traditional, email-driven workflow that will feel right at home for veteran open-source contributors.

• Key Features: An email-driven workflow where you submit patches via email, integrated CI (builds.sr.ht), mailing lists, and bug tracking. Everything is designed to be as fast as possible.

• Pros: It is, without a doubt, the fastest platform on this list. It champions a time-tested method for open-source collaboration and is 100% open-source itself. It’s a breath of fresh air if you’re sick of bloated web apps.

• Cons: The email-based workflow has a very steep learning curve for anyone used to pull requests. The minimalist UI is functional, but it’s definitely an acquired taste.

• Pricing: SourceHut uses a "pay what you can" model. There are three suggested tiers, but you get full access with any of them.

  • Amateur: $2/month

  • Typical: $5/month

  • Professional: $10/month

• Best for: Developers who love the traditional open-source ethos, prefer email workflows, and value performance and simplicity over anything else.

This video provides a great overview of the top GitHub alternatives available for hosting your open-source projects.

Optimizing your developer support workflow

Picking a new Git host is a great start, but let’s talk about a problem that follows you no matter where your code lives: finding information. Think about all the time developers waste trying to track down build instructions, API docs, or internal coding standards. They’re either waiting for an answer in a chat channel or digging through a dozen different places. It’s a huge, hidden time-waster.

This is where a smart knowledge tool can really help. Instead of making developers hunt for answers, you can bring the answers directly to them. Something like eesel AI plugs right into the places your team already works, like Slack or MS Teams. It securely connects to all your company knowledge, from docs in Confluence and plans in Google Docs to the wikis in your new Git platform. The result is a single, reliable source of truth.

This workflow diagram illustrates how a tool like eesel AI can optimize developer support by automating answers and integrating knowledge from various sources, a great complement to any of the GitHub alternatives.::

Imagine a new dev asking, "What’s the process for requesting a new database instance?" in Slack and getting an instant, step-by-step answer. When you pair your chosen GitHub alternative with a tool like this, you’re not just swapping out your repo host, you’re tackling one of the biggest drains on your team’s productivity.

Choosing the right GitHub alternative for you

So, what’s the final verdict? There isn’t one. The "best" GitHub alternative really comes down to what your team needs.

If you want an all-in-one platform that does everything, GitLab is a beast. If you’d rather have a fast, lightweight solution you can host yourself, Gitea is tough to top. For teams already deep in the Atlassian world, Bitbucket just makes sense. And if you’re all about open-source values, Codeberg is waiting for you.

As you think about your options, try to look past just the code repository. The real goal is to build an environment where your developers can just get stuff done without unnecessary headaches.

When you’re ready to get rid of the headache of hunting for information, give eesel AI a look.