GitHub Alternatives

What is GitHub?

GitHub is a version control system which is used by developers to get the details of all the changes made to the code. Developers can easily collaborate on a project by using different tools available on GitHub to manage changes made by different developers. Developers can improve a software for free from public repositories of GitHub. However, a small fee is charged to make changes in a software available in private repositories. Project files and file revision history is available in the repositories.

Price Plans of GitHub

There are three price plans which can be found in the table below −

Plan	Price
Free	$0
Team	$3.67 per user per month
Enterprise	$19.25 per user per month

Why GitHub alternatives?

There are a few disadvantages with GitHub listed below −

• Some useful features of the platform are not available for free

• Some alternatives have better features than GitHub

• It is difficult for beginners to use the tool

• GUI is confusing and needs improvement

How to choose a GitHub Alternative?

There are many advantages of this platform due to which many people love to use it. Some of these advantages are as follows −

• It is easy to collaborate with other users

• Tracking the progress of projects is very easy

• Easy to integrate with Google Cloud and Amazon

• Changes between different versions of an application can be easily tracked

• Remote collaboration of developers is possible

Top 10 GitHub Alternatives

GitHub has many alternatives and some of them have been discussed here in detail.

Alternative 1 – GitLab

GitLab is an alternative to GitHub which is available for free. It is an open-source platform which provides an uptime of up to 99.69 percent. Companies who face losses due to long downtimes of other applications can use GitLab. The tool provides support to more than 20,000 users. It is a secure, fast, and reliable platform and can be used anytime and from anywhere. Users do not suffer loss of data neither they get confused with different versions of code.

Alternative 2 – Bitbucket

Bitbucket is a tool which has been developed for those teams who have to collaborate with members to plan projects. They can create the required code and execute the project on a single platform. Unlimited private repositories are provided by the platform for small and large teams. Bitbucket can also integrate with Trello and Jira. A code review option is present in the tool which helps the team to make a project efficiently.

Alternative 3 – SourceForge

SourceForge is one of the popular alternatives to GitHub. It is an open-source platform which has the features of collaboration and distribution of open-source programs. The platform provides all the tools needed by developers to make open-source projects. People who want to migrate to SourceForge from GitHub have the option of importing all the GitHub repositories to SourceForge.

Alternative 4 – Beanstalk

Beanstalk is a tool that can be sued for managing source code repositories. It is a powerful and secure tool which can streamline the development workflow with the help of different features like repository statistics, release notes, issue tracker, email digests, and many more. You will also get the history of changes made to the code.

Alternative 5 – GitBucket

GitBucket is a tool and an alternative to GitHub that allows the developers to manage code Some of the features offered by the platform include pull requests and repository viewer. The platform is powered by Scala and no cloud service is provided. Users have to self-host GitBucket. You can create public and private repositories as per the requirement.

Alternative 6 – Launchpad

Launchpad came into existence in 2004. It is an open-source platform which developers can use for the development and maintenance of their code for free. The software has been developed by the parent company of Ubuntu namely Canonical. It provides the feature of bug tracking for projects related to Ubuntu. As it is related only to Ubuntu, Launchpad is not much popular.

Alternative 7 – Phabricator

Phabricator is an open-source platform which consists of a lot of tools to develop and collaborate on software projects Users also have the option of self-hosting their VPS Some of the features of Phabricator include repository hosting, documentation, code review, project management, bug tracking, and many more.

Alternative 8 – AWS CodeCommit

AWS CodeCommit is a project management platform which consists of private code repositories. This is the reason that developers consider this platform over GitHub. Source files can be easily accessed on AWS CodeCommit. The platform can easily integrate with −

• AWS CLI

• AWS SDKs

• AWS Management Console

The files are transferred through secured protocols which include HTTPS and SSH.

Alternative 9 – Apache Allura

Apache Allura is another open-source alternative to GitHub. This software has the ability to manage source code repositories, bug reports, blogs, documents, and many more. Apache Allura is a self-hosted platform on the instance of Wiki, Git, and tickets. You can search for syntax and your searches will be saved. Files can be formatted and attached with the help of tickets. Custom labels and fields can be used to organize these tickets.

Alternative 10 – Gitea

Gitea is another open-source platform which is popular among many small businesses. This service is compatible with many popular operating systems like Linux, Windows, and Mac. The platform can be integrated with many other tools like Docker and Vagrant.

Conclusion

GitHub is a platform which can be used for managing projects. This is a version control system which can help you store different versions of a code. The tool can be used easily but it has some drawbacks like confusing GUI, paid useful features, difficult for beginners, and many more. There are many alternatives like GitLab, Phabricator, SourceForge, etc. which can be used to manage code and projects.