Developer tools · Updated October 2026
GitHub is Microsoft's hosted platform for git repositories, pull requests, and CI. If you would rather own your tools, here are 4 open source alternatives to GitHub, ranked by GitHub stars. Each one is free to use under its license, and you can read, change, and often self-host the code.
The most popular is Gitea with 58.6k stars, and the most recently updated is GitLab, with a commit on Oct 21, 2026.
by go-gitea
Git with a cup of tea! Painless self-hosted all-in-one software development service, including Git hosting, code review, team collaboration, package registry and CI/CD
by gogs
The painless way to host your own Git service
by gitlabhq
GitLab CE Mirror | Please open new issues in our issue tracker on GitLab.com
by theonedev
The Unified and Autonomous Development Platform
By GitHub stars, Gitea is the most popular open source alternative to GitHub right now, with 58.6k stars, followed by Gogs and GitLab. The best fit depends on your setup, so compare their licenses, languages, and recent activity in the table above.
Yes. All 4 projects on this page are open source, so the software itself is free to use, study, and change. Some of them also sell a hosted version or paid support.
GitLab (last commit Oct 21, 2026), Gitea (last commit Oct 21, 2026), and Gogs (last commit Oct 21, 2026) have the most recent commits. Licenses on this list include MIT.
Gitea
Gogs
GitLab
OneDev