Recommendations for a source code hosting service
I am looking for recommendations for an open source self-hosted version control system source code hosting service. I found a few, but I can't decide on which one to pick:
If there's a better one than the ones I've listed here, I'd love to hear about it!
I care primarily about privacy and security, if that makes any difference.
Forgejo - actively developed open source. It's what powers Codeberg. Easy to set up and manage with Docker. I moved to it from Gogs and skipped Gitea after reading about the forks.
If you are not wed to git, and are willing to try something else, why not give Fossil SCM a try. It's created and maintained by the creator of SQLite. It's a single executable that provides everything for modern source code management, including a website, and even has an official docker file that just works.
Issue tracking, forum support, email, it's all there, in a single executable that can serve as both the front and back end depending on how you launch it. And it's a smaller install than git by itself.
I use Forgejo for my private git repos but in all honesty, it's massive overkill for my needs.
+1 for Forgejo!
Just set it up with Docker this past week, it was fairly straightforward and has been working well since
+1 for Forgejo
I use Forgejo mostly for code archiving but anything that requires CI/CD, like personal code projects, i use OneDev. No extra setup for pipeline, batteries included
Used Gitea for a while, and decided to switch to Forgejo before the hard fork split (no more code from Gitea), been using it since, In my opinion both work well, but prefer Forgejo.
Gogs is the original. Gitea is a fork because the dev of Gogs wasn't taking community input (I think that was the reasoning behind it). Forgejo is a fork of gitea because some folks didn't like gitea forming a for profit corporation (Or something to that effect).
As far as day to day use they're all fairly similar, though it's been a long time since I used Gogs.
It's not just the for-profit corporation, there's also governance issues. Basically, the community elected certain positions and then had the rug pulled out from them such that no elections would be held again.
In the name of the Gitea Community who elected you last year, we welcome the creation of a for-profit company that allows you to make a living out of Gitea.
[...]
We believed you when you promised to pass along the ownership of the Gitea project to your elected successors. This promise is part of an essential bond between you and the strong Community of volunteers, as well as all those who rely upon our collective efforts.
With that in mind, you can understand our surprise when we learned on October 25th, 2022 that both the domains and the trademark were transferred to a for-profit company without our knowledge or approval.
Thanks, I knew there was a bit more to it but hadn't followed it all that closely.
IMO, the Gogs dev was correct. If you look at that community input and what Gitea became, I was glad to use the version that rejected it.
But I don't know how it compares with Forgejo.
It’s Gitea with some security fixes and community input, as open source software should be.
Those 3 are all fairly similar. Here are some others I can think of:
If you're not using any of the additional features, cgit should be enough. If you're planning on collaborating with others, probably Forgejo would be better.
You can also use individual components of sourcehut, if you want a git web interface with just issue tracking, ci, or wiki, for example.
A pro of Sourcehut is that EVERYTHING can be done by email. So, if you use their issue tracker and want other people to be able to submit issues, they can do it without making an account.
The things you're describing aren't really version control systems themselves. Git is a version control system; these are an ecosystem of web-based tools surrounding that version control system.
I don't know if there's a good term for these.
kagis
Wikipedia calls them "forges":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forge_(software)
In free and open-source software (FOSS) development communities, a forge is a web-based collaborative software platform for both developing and sharing computer applications.
For software developers it is an online service to host the tools they need to work and communicate with their coworkers. It provides a workflow to propose modifications and engage in discussions. The goal is to reach an agreement that will allow these modifications to be merged into the software repository.
For users, a forge is a repository of computer applications, a place where bugs can be reported, a channel to be informed of security issues, etc.
The source code itself is stored in a revision control system and linked to a wide range of services such as a code review, bug database, continuous integration, etc. When a development community forks, it duplicates the content of the forge and is then able to modify it without asking permission. A community may rely on services scattered on multiple forges: they are not necessarily hosted under the same domain.
Sorry for the off-topic question, but this has been driving me crazy.
Is “kagis” the verb for using the search engine “kagi”? For the longest time I’ve been interpreting it as a “dejected sigh” emotional expression.
Yes!
I guess it would be more akin to a "source code hosting service," but that would imply that I intend to open it to the internet (which isn't necessarily the case).
My only input is gitlab is very complicated, never used the others
You asked for a service, but listed software. The latest FOSS software option is Forgejo, you should use it instead of others for all the reasons mentioned. However, if you're looking for a service, Codeberg runs a very popular Forgejo instance as a service.