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Discussion Sentiment

61% Positive

Analyzed from 2147 words in the discussion.

Trending Topics

#github#self#why#https#hosting#gitea#don#git#forgejo#projects

Discussion (75 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

My_Name•8 minutes ago
As a developer who ditched Github and decided to self-host, there is only one reason. It's not technical difficulties, politics, nor AI. It's Microsoft. Like Apple, Facebook etc, I have a deep loathing for Microsoft and I want to remove as much of it from my life as I am able.

I now run Git on a pi using Gitea and Forgejo. I can now upload files of a size unheard of in GitHub, Claude can make a PR by itself that I can diff, edit, then merge, and even with the mighty power of a single pi 3b+, it feels more responsive.

jorisw•about 1 hour ago
Sentiment for/against GitHub aside...

"Why X are doing Y" articles like these pretend that the premise of "X are doing Y" is true, conveniently skipping to the "Why" before proving that the premise is even accurate in any meaningful way.

This is why I never buy headlines that start out with "Why".

> developers are ditching

Proceeds to list but a handful of remotely meaningful repos against the hundreds of thousands on there

juanibiapina•27 minutes ago
Agreed. But if I comment on this, I'm promoting the article. What do I do?
pjc50•about 1 hour ago
You can just insert the word "some" as required.
jorisw•about 1 hour ago
Agreed, but the headline wouldn't travel nearly as well, if at all.

> Why some Americans are switching to soy

Would be more accurate than

> Why Americans are switching to soy

But wouldn't garner nearly the same amount of clicks.

There is conscious exaggeration in omitting 'some' - a fluff-blog click-farm trope I don't enjoy seeing in the developer space.

p-e-w•37 minutes ago
I’ve seen titles like “Why top scientists are leaving the United States” where the article itself talked about A SINGLE RESEARCHER relocating to France.
close04•about 1 hour ago
> a handful of remotely meaningful repos

If there's a trend to leave a platform it won't start with the most entrenched users (largest repos).

They acknowledge your concern in the article and their analysis does apply to those few who are leaving. But to be fair the title can be interpreted either way and the most reasonable read for anyone is "some of them are leaving". I'd find it clickbaity if they said "why developers are leaving en-masse" and then point out to the regular turnover. There's clearly a trend, what's not clear is if it gains momentum.

esperent•36 minutes ago
> If there's a trend

That's the point being made. Is there a trend? How do we know?

There's always some repos moving between hosting providers for all kinds of reasons. The burden of proof is on the author here to show there's been an increase and they don't do that.

conartist6•12 minutes ago
The early adopters are leaving. These are the people that will blaze a trail that others follow.
hambos22•about 1 hour ago
It's been 9 months since I ditched Github.

Currently I self-host Gitea [0], use its registry for Docker, NPM etc and act runners [1] for github actions alternative, everything secured under tailnet.

I'm extremely satisfied with that setup. It is batteries included & fire and forget.

Now I use Github only as backup by mirroring my self hosted repos.

[0] https://gitea.com

[1] https://docs.gitea.com/usage/actions/act-runner

Jnr•6 minutes ago
I similarly have been using Gitea for some years. I use it as my main forge and mirror to Github for discoverability and community reports and contributions.

For public projects I have workflows that can publish and push containers to both Gitea and Github.

wseqyrku•4 minutes ago
> Now I use Github only as backup by mirroring my self hosted repos.

That'll do it for GH, for whatever reason you "ditched" it.

permalac•about 1 hour ago
Similar with forgejo. I mirrored all gh then flipped the ones I was using the most. The biggest win was on running apple runners in my mac, so the free gh actions can do other stuff.
BrandoElFollito•7 minutes ago
I self host gitea for my personal-personal projects, the ones nobody will ever see.

For the personal-opensource ones, I am on Github because this is where everyone is when I want to share/collaborate etc

onesandofgrain•about 1 hour ago
You use github as a backup, why bother self-hosting then?
hambos22•about 1 hour ago
Github is an extra layer of backup, among normal backups.

[edit]

Notable reasons:

- Github runners went oftenly out of space & they were slow. With self hosted runners I don't have these issues anymore because I control the hardware.

Previously I was paying Docker Build Cloud/Depot for performance + Github Pro for extra minutes. Now it's zero cost, superb performance and unlimited minutes.

- I have a centralized registry with private packages and images.

- It's secure, I don't worry if I accidentally make a repo public or leak secrets. I control the access to it in network level.

- I own everything, in case something goes nuts (eg lose access to GH) I'm safe.

stanac•about 1 hour ago
Not GP. Probably less dependencies on github, e.g. actions which sometimes don't work. This way github is a "dumb backup".

I selfhost forgejo (gitea fork) on home sever (nuc), similar setup with tailscale. I was planning to setup git mirror on a remote VM for backup, but since I am the only one using it and have everything on dev laptop and remote backups of nuc server I didn't bother to do that (I know I still should).

walrus01•about 1 hour ago
Because the existence and continued normal operation of the primary is not dependent upon the capricious whims or instability of GitHub.
close04•about 1 hour ago
The self hosting will still be there and working as expected no matter what GH does (fails... again, DMCAs the repo, bans the account, etc.). Self hosting isn't only about being the only one with the data, it's also for the independence aspect. GH as a backup doesn't hinder the independence. Network effects are strong and make a lot of developers still have a GH presence as a secondary platform.

The evolution is when one can finally fully disconnect from GH, the main self hosted platform will continue to operate as if nothing happened.

A migration can have a period of parallel running.

benthecarman•about 2 hours ago
Our CI for our entire org at https://github.com/lightningdevkit was turned off for 3 weeks because an outside contributor who was wrongfully banned made a PR. After multiple appeals we received no explanation and was told it was a permanent ban until we made a stir on twitter. They sadly are no longer a good place to work.
TekMol•about 1 hour ago
The appeal of GitHub for me is not only in the git hosting, but also in codespaces. It gives me:

    1: An easy way to start a VM
    2: A one-click solution to access it via private https access
So for development, I dont need to dabble with spawning my own Hetzner VM or something. And I also do not have to dabble with getting a temporary domain and DNS so I can set up my own letsencrypt certs and point the domain to that VM.

I can just write an index.html, execute "sudo python -m http.server 80", click the link that then opens to something.app.github.dev and test my new web application.

This is why codespaces make starting a new product idea a thing of like 1 minute instead of 1 hour for me.

qweqwe14•18 minutes ago
You'd be surprised how easy it is to self-host GitLab with Docker Compose, GitLab has an official "Omnibus" Docker image. No need to handicap yourself with Gitea/Forgejo/whatever, you can just use an industry-standard platform without much effort.

Hardware requirements are nowhere close to high either.

inigyou•11 minutes ago
What makes GitLab "industry-standard" and Forgejo not?
frabcus•30 minutes ago
I'm trying sourcehut at the moment https://sourcehut.org/ and it seems really good - very simple and fast. And does seem to be free for hosting open source projects.

Anyone else used it and have thoughts on it?

notpushkin•23 minutes ago
I really really love it but I just can’t get myself to embrace the email workflow. Maybe I’ll make a “pull requests for git.sr.ht” app one day!
littlecranky67•about 1 hour ago
Mostly because developers (me included) don't like to be told we are being laid off due to AI that was trained on our free open-source hobby projects.
Scaled•about 1 hour ago
For private code, it just feels safer to self host that -- ideally behind wireguard for an extra layer of security.

For public code hosting, GitHub have banned too many people/projects for comfort. From security researchers to 18+ game devs, too many have been wrongfully banned.

5701652400•about 2 hours ago
+ predatory pricing hikes for AI

+ not honouring yearly commitments plans

ciefa•20 minutes ago
I'm hosting my own Forgejo instance and it's great. Coolify as well :) It's fun!
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kgeist•about 1 hour ago
We've been self-hosting GitLab for about a year now, and I don't remember it ever going down or being unavailable. We self-host almost everything else too (except for online meetings), and it's all been pretty stable as well. Some of the tools we self-host do go down occasionally, but it's usually just a matter of restarting the VM or adding more storage.
rmnull•42 minutes ago
Genuinely curious here for someone who has tried self hosting git and has found it a pita to maintain...i want to know what is it that devs are flocking to other platforms and how are we sure that they won't pull all the red card signals that github is said to pull off.
thyristan•31 minutes ago
Have been self-hosting GitLab for my org a few years by now, with quite a few users (>800 atm). Updates are automatic via the GitLab Omnibus package repos. Once or twice per year some update requires intervention. Otherwise, nothing bad happens. Very happy so far.

Biggest problem at the moment is that AI scrapers (curse them and their owners, pox be upon their houses!) sometimes bring things to a crawl. But nothing that a few firewall rules and anoubis won't solve.

greenavocado•5 minutes ago
If you are running an org you should be putting all your private services behind netbird or tailscale at minimum. Zero public infra exposure beyond them.
notpushkin•19 minutes ago
Forgejo is fairly simple to run – way lighter and simpler than GitLab even. (GitLab is quite okay, too!)

If you want a hosted service, go for Codeberg. It’s run by a German non-profit (so it’ll be hard to bite and switch OpenAI-style). Only free/open source projects are accepted, though.

klaussilveira•about 1 hour ago
We ditched GitHub for self-hosted Forgejo and could not be happier. The experience is smoother, faster and distraction-free.
feverzsj•about 1 hour ago
It's pretty much broken by AI. Not only your private repos are not private, but also the LLM will leak them.
srean•about 1 hour ago
Anyone has suggestions for hosting open source hobby projects managed with Mercurial.

Loved Bitbucket's Mercurial offering. Looking for a replacement.

notpushkin•17 minutes ago
Sourcehut has Mercurial support: https://hg.sr.ht/

Heptapod is a GitLab fork that adds Mercurial support: https://heptapod.net/, free for open source projects: https://foss.heptapod.net/heptapod/foss.heptapod.net

srean•12 minutes ago
Just in time. I was about to edit my own comment to mention

https://hg.sr.ht/ that I learned of from a comment by frabcus on this post.

Thanks for links.

ezoe•about 2 hours ago
I guess three nines availability is important.
onion2k•about 2 hours ago
Not even hitting 1 nine at the moment - https://mrshu.github.io/github-statuses/
jopsen•about 1 hour ago
I object!

The dashboard clearly says 89.15% uptime!

Who says nines need to be leading?

etdznots•about 1 hour ago
With enough precision in the time metric there are infinitely many nines!
fmind-dev•about 1 hour ago
It reminds me of the time where I deployed Gitea for self-hosting my git projects. In the end, nobody wanted to use it beyond myself. I would love to have a true federation protocol for Git, to decentralize the solution further.
ahmedehab_01•about 1 hour ago
Extreme generalization, most devs aren't ditching GitHub yet.
Havoc•about 1 hour ago
Im just glad the wider world has finally snapped out of their GitHub mono culture trance.
rob•about 1 hour ago
People are going to copy GitHub the way people copied Facebook… how is "Threads" doing again?
etdznots•about 1 hour ago
Not good but that’s unsurprising since Thread’s value proposition is indistinguishable from twitter’s. Mastadon and bluesky seem to have healthy userbases though
DonHopkins•41 minutes ago
Now if only the leader of Github would make Nazi salutes in public, regularly piss his pants due to frequent ketamine abuse, and cancel foreign aid causing 14 million brown children and other undesirable riff-raff to die by 2030, then maybe people would be as compelled to cancel Github as Twitter.
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Cider9986•about 2 hours ago
Why don't open source alternatives just copy the UI to make it easier to switch? Everyone knows the GitHub UI and it's intuitive. I'm happy to get more privacy and freedom, you don't have to make a worse design just to be different.

Fluxer figured this out and they're the best discord replacement imo.

https://fluxer.app/

GoblinSlayer•about 1 hour ago
I think they have the same interface. Pull requests are renamed to merge requests, that's all the difference I see. Wait for github to reshuffle the ui in a redesign churn.
duskdozer•about 1 hour ago
Acquiring github users may not be their highest priority.
kelvinjps10•about 1 hour ago
Inst gitea doing this?
tjpnz•about 1 hour ago
>it's intuitive

Until you have to work with stale GHAS tool configurations, remember whether a project uses rulesets or branch settings or find that comment you wrote on a PR (and then learn that the new PR "experience" fucking hides them above a certain threshold). Those are just the issues I encounter in a typical week.

jorisw•about 1 hour ago
> copy the UI

Good luck. The amount of features and screens on GitHub are vast aside from just those code / issues / PRs tabs.

allarm•about 1 hour ago
I’m not disputing how intuitive the GitHub interface is, but seriously, why is it so hard for technical professionals to set aside 10–20 minutes of their time to learn a new interface? Why has this even become an issue worth discussing?
iamwil•about 1 hour ago
Anyone tried tangle as a replacement? Verdict?
latexr•about 2 hours ago
> One new user joins every second

Do they? Or is it that a new account is opened every second? Because I’ve been seeing so many spammers and scammers that those numbers have to be skewed.

fragmede•38 minutes ago
No affiliation, but http://code.storage gets my vote.
onesandofgrain•about 1 hour ago
self-hosted gitea/forgejo is still better
BrenBarn•about 1 hour ago
So sad to see that no articles about this even mention Mercurial. This is a golden opportunity for Hg providers to shine.
srean•about 1 hour ago
I miss Bitbucket's Mercurial offering.
DonHopkins•36 minutes ago
But Github is already fully volatile, capricious, fickle, erratic, unpredictable, variable, inconsistent, changeable, unstable, whimsical, protean, fluid, and a polluting poisonous room temperature liquid heavy metal, so why would you also need mercurial?
srean•26 minutes ago
:)

Was very happy to find that Hginit.com has been given a new life here

https://hginit.github.io/

signa11•about 1 hour ago
this not a `git` failure per se...
BrenBarn•about 1 hour ago
Yes, but the thing is just that if people are looking around for new providers it's an opportunity for alternative systems to attract attention and users.
navigate8310•about 1 hour ago
I understand what you convey, however, users are tired of the git GUI, not git itself.
Madmallard•43 minutes ago
I think and hope we see a lot more of this before the adversarial imperative returns from the company side.

People using Claude Fable to just make replacements for disgustingly enshittified software. We desperately need browser extensions to help make websites less scummy across the board as well.

cryo32•about 2 hours ago
I've ditched Github for all personal stuff. I just keep my repositories offline. I have a reliable backup process so what's the point in pushing it there? I don't give a shit about public profile, stars or any of that gamified crap and I certainly don't trust them.
sneak•about 2 hours ago
Did we all forget that GitHub’s military-industrial complex owners over at Microsoft made sure to send the “business as usual” signal to the USG when they refused to stop helping ICE violate human rights en masse?

This was during the kidnap-and-rape-kids-in-cages days and before they started a general policy of kidnapping and/or summarily executing law-abiding citizens in the street. There are more reasons now to disassociate with collaborators with the US federal government than ever. I guess I could say I dropped GitHub before it was cool?

https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/github-and-us...

https://github.com/sneak

Microsoft is a morally bankrupt and despicable organization, just like Meta, Amazon, and modern Google and Apple. Anyone still doing ongoing business with them in 2026 is, imho, a fool.

youre-wrong3•about 2 hours ago
Can’t go a day without propaganda on HN.
inigyou•9 minutes ago
Everything is propaganda, including your comment and this one.
graemep•about 2 hours ago
> Anyone still doing ongoing business with them in 2026 is, imho, a fool.

So that would be almost everyone.

DonHopkins•30 minutes ago
[Slow clap... building to thunderous applause. Standing ovation.]

I say! Well done! Bravo! Bravo! Encore! Encore!

Now do a foaming-at-the-mouth diatribe about how predatory, unethical libertarian crypto-scamming shills such as yourself and Trump are crashing the economy while violently tearing society apart into a tiny oligarchy and widespread poverty. Extra points for plugging your latest sociopathic crypto scam as the final solution.