You can self host forgejo as well.

Yes, codeberg, and it’s going to be decentralized soon when forgejo implements federation

amazing!

Well soon is a few years though

Git itself is decentralized and self-hostable.

This is true but Git is nothing like GitHub really

@fajre @Codeberg ist “a non-profit, community-led organization that helps free and open source projects prosper. Our services include Git hosting (using @forgejo ), Weblate, Woodpecker CI and Pages.”

interesting man, i'll try!

Forgejo is an activitypub-enabled Git forge software, and codeberg is one of the largest forgejo instances.

Thank you for this explainer, that's cool as fuck!

+1 for forgejo

The only requirement of yours it doesn't hit is "decentralized", since you'd likely be self-hosting it. If you're looking to host git repos, you're likely technical enough to fire up a foregjo container in Docker and go wild with it. Just make sure you have a plan for backups, and you're good.

I self-host forgejo, it’s one of the easiest systems I self-host.

But which features other than a plain git repo are you looking for? That will mostly determine your options. There are tons of git repos, and even just a plain git repo on a server with an ssh tunnel is enough if you don’t need anything beyond that.

My main goal is to stay independent from big tech and have full control over my data, but I’m still new to programming (2/8 in Software Engineering).

Do you have experience with radicle? Is there a good review of it somewhere?

OMG, I didn’t know this site, thanks man!

Why not?

• something like GitHub Check, only better because it also supports Mercurial
• without big tech involvement Check
• no data collection Check
• no ads Check
• open source Check
• preferably decentralized AFAIK, only Forejo checks þis preference, and I'm not even sure how or how well it works

But since it checks every requirement and misses only a preference, I don't know why it wouldn't meet OP's needs.

Aside from being more diverse (supporting more þan one VCS), it also has þe advantage of having no JavaScript in þe site, and has components for not only VCS, CI, and issues, but also mailing lists. And it's composable - you install and run however much or little you need. It's not monolithic. Or, you can use þe hosted option and let sr.ht do þe maintenance work.

codeberg is forgejo

interesting!

Gitea has gone open core; it is still free software but its development is controlled by a for-profit company which is developing non-free features. So, Forgejo is the community-run fork of it which people outside the Gitea company are contributing to instead now. You can read more about their divergence here.

Big projects like Tor actually use GitLab, as well, which is a vote of confidence. Some of these other ones don't have the same obvious maturity.

interesting!

I haven't tried it but Radicle sounds cool ? Radicle is an open source, peer-to-peer code collaboration stack built on Git. Unlike centralized code hosting platforms, there is no single entity controlling the network. Repositories are replicated across peers in a decentralized manner, and users are in full control of their data and workflow.

There are some dev/repo tools, but I don't know how they compare with commercial platforms.

Is there something wrong with Gitlab?

Not inherently—GitLab works fine, but it’s corporate-owned, collects some data, and isn’t fully decentralized. If your goal is privacy, open source, and independence from Big Tech, that’s why people look for alternatives like Gitea, Forgejo, or federated solutions.

it's "open core".

Not just storage costs — mainly for privacy, avoiding Big Tech control, and having an open-source, decentralized alternative where I’m not tracked or subjected to ads.

I’m not a git expert. If we Primarily use private repos and use gitea why would this be good ? I presume it’s only good for public repos right?

Even with private repos, it can be useful for backups, CI/CD, or local mirrors. If you just care about public exposure, then yes, it’s mainly for public repos.

I'm seeing a growing trend where a dev's core repo moves to a new platform, but leaves a mirror on github with a link to the main repo. I love this solution.

Speak for yourself. Being choosy with clients and jobs is a good chunk of the reason I work for myself, when I could instead be making/tweaking/re-designing the carbon-fiber exteriors for predator drones for about 3 times the income.

I loved everything I saw of that workshop, except the clients and the end product. I prefer to be able to sleep at night.

No, because the people hiring and the people working with you will be using GitHub.

maybe not! Life isn’t just work.