Free alternatives to GitHub to host your software

We propose a selection of alternatives to GitHub to host your software. There are them for all tastes, but they all have a free version.

GitHub is possibly the most popular platform to host software developments, both open source and commercial. It currently has the support of more than 40 million developers, among which names such as Google, IBM, PayPal, Spotify, Facebook and NASA itself stand out.

Based on Git version control software , which was created by Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, GitHub was created in 2008. And ten years later, Microsoft bought it for a whopping $ 7.5 billion.

Be that as it may, GitHub continues to be a great tool for software developers and for those looking for interesting applications or programs. But your dependence on Microsoft may cause reluctance to use it. In any case, for everything there are alternatives .

Gitlab

Perhaps the most equivalent alternatives to GitHub is GitLab , a software development platform where you can upload your public or private repositories to work alone or in groups with free or proprietary software.

Among its features, its free account stands out , more than acceptable, support to integrate into Linux-based operating systems and cloud services such as Amazon’s AWS, Google’s GCP or Microsoft’s Azure. It is also compatible with Docker or Kubernetes, among others.

As its name suggests, GitLab is based on Git, although it has its own bug tracking system, room for your own Wiki, and other additional services that cover the entire software development process beyond version control.

Launchpad

Another great alternative is Launchpad , the software hosting platform and version control from Canonical , the organization responsible for Ubuntu Linux .

Open source development codes like Ubuntu are hosted on this platform, but so are others like Inkscape , Shutter or OpenShot Video Editor . In total, more than 40,000 projects.

In addition to version control and Wiki, Launchpad facilitates tasks such as code review, search and resolution of errors, internal mailing lists …

Google Cloud Source Repositories

Under the name Google Cloud there is a whole catalog of services and products related to online storage and other professional tasks related to the Internet.

And one of its products is Cloud Source Repositories , its own platform to host its own software based on the Git version controller.

In addition to offering free space (up to 50 GB) to create private and / or public repositories, you can migrate your content from other similar services like GitHub . To which we must add additional services such as error analysis , code testing in the cloud, etc.

SourceForge

You may SourceForge is one of the software platforms most veteran , and although it has seen better days, is still there. Currently, it has more than 430,000 projects and more than 3.7 million registered users.

Among other things, it allows hosting open source and commercial software, offers download statistics , integrates tools such as mailing lists, forums and blogs, it is compatible with Git but also with Mercurial and Subversion , etc.

Another of its outstanding features is that it is very useful to developers because it makes it easier to download the software from different servers . In addition, millions of users can search for and download applications , making it a good little-known software sideboard.

Bitbucket

We finish this list of alternatives to GitHub with Bitbucket , Atlassian’s proposal to host software developments. Atlassian is responsible for development tools as well known as Jira or Confluence . In addition, a few years ago he acquired Trello .

Focusing on Bitbucket, it allows creating free repositories for groups of up to 5 people, it is compatible with Git and, of course, it integrates well with Jira and Trello , in the event that you organize your work with these tools.

More cool features. Bitbucket offers space on its servers but you can install it on your own server. It also allows testing of code in the cloud and customize access permissions to each part of the software.