Gitea vs GitHub

Hosting

• Gitea: Primarily self-hosted (on your own servers, Docker, etc.), with an option for hosted Gitea Cloud (paid).
• GitHub: Cloud-hosted at github.com, with an Enterprise version for on-prem/self-hosted (paid).

Cost

• Gitea: Free and open-source under the MIT license. For self-hosting, you only pay for infrastructure costs.
• GitHub: Free for public repositories and unlimited private repos (with some limits). Paid options include Pro/Team for around $4–$21 per user per month. Enterprise has custom pricing.

Performance & Resources

• Gitea: Extremely lightweight and efficient, running well on low-end hardware (e.g., Raspberry Pi with 1 CPU/256MB RAM).
• GitHub: Highly scalable cloud infrastructure capable of handling massive traffic and projects with ease.

Features

• Gitea: Git hosting, issues, pull requests (PRs), wikis, package registry, CI/CD (via Gitea Actions, compatible with GitHub Actions), and support for Go-based actions.
• GitHub: Includes all of Gitea's features plus more advanced tools like GitHub Actions (which are more mature), Copilot AI, Codespaces, advanced security scanning, Dependabot, Projects boards, and Discussions.

CI/CD

• Gitea: Supports Gitea Actions with YAML workflows and reusable actions. Some users report bugs when using advanced features.
• GitHub: Offers GitHub Actions with a robust marketplace and seamless integrations. As of late 2025, GitHub will charge for self-hosted runners starting in March 2026.

User Interface

• Gitea: Simple, minimalist, and familiar to GitHub users, though slightly less polished.
• GitHub: Highly polished and modern, with an intuitive design, dark mode, and rich visual features.

Integrations

• Gitea: Fewer built-in integrations, but it’s extensible via custom plugins (open-source).
• GitHub: Thousands of native integrations (e.g., Slack, Jira, Jenkins), along with a robust marketplace for apps.

Community & Ecosystem

• Gitea: A growing open-source community, with forks like Forgejo. It’s popular among self-hosters.
• GitHub: A massive global community, the largest open-source hub with strong backing from Microsoft.

Security & Privacy

• Gitea: Full control over data (self-hosted), meaning there’s no vendor lock-in.
• GitHub: Offers advanced security features (e.g., secret scanning), but your data is hosted on Microsoft’s servers.

Best For

• Gitea: Individuals, small teams, privacy-focused users, or those who want full control over their setup and are working with low-resource hardware.
• GitHub: Larger teams, open-source projects, and enterprises that need advanced tools, scalability, and the largest possible community support.

• Complete ownership and privacy-no reliance on third-party servers or outages.
• Low resource usage and easy deployment (e.g., single Docker container).
• No feature paywalls; everything is free in the self-hosted version.
• Highly customizable as open-source.

• Requires self-maintenance (backups, updates, scaling).
• Fewer advanced features and integrations compared to GitHub.
• Smaller ecosystem for actions/plugins.

• Zero setup/maintenance; instant scalability.
• Rich feature set, including AI tools like Copilot.
• Huge community for collaboration and discovery.
• Excellent support and documentation.

• Data hosted by Microsoft; potential privacy concerns.
• Advanced features are often behind paywalls.
• Dependent on the internet and GitHub's uptime/policies.

• Choose Gitea if you want a free, self-hosted "mini GitHub" for personal use, small teams, or when privacy/control is paramount (e.g., internal company repos).
• Choose GitHub for public open-source projects, large-scale collaboration, or when you need cutting-edge tools like AI-assisted coding.

Many users mirror repos between both for backups/redundancy. Gitea is often praised in self-hosting communities as the top lightweight alternative, while GitHub remains the industry standard for cloud hosting.

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