A source-code-hosting facility (also known as forge) is a file archive and web hosting facility for source code of software, documentation, web pages, and other works, accessible either publicly or privately. They are often used by open-source software projects and other multi-developer projects to maintain revision and version history, or version control. Many repositories provide a bug tracking system, and offer release management, mailing lists, and wiki-based project documentation. Software authors generally retain their copyright when software is posted to a code hosting facilities.
| Name | Developer | Initial release | Free server? | Free client? | Associated collaborative development environment | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assembla | Assembla, Inc. | 2005 | No | Unknown | Unknown | |
| Azure DevOps Services | Microsoft | 2012 [1] | No | No | Azure DevOps Services | Most features are free for open source projects or teams of 5 members or less [2] |
| Bitbucket | Atlassian | 2008 | No | No | Atlassian BitBucket Server, JIRA and Confluence | Denies service to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria [3] |
| CloudForge | CollabNet | 2012 | No | Unknown | Unknown | |
| Gitea | CommitGo, Inc. [4] | 2016-12 [5] | Yes | Yes | Gitea | Gitea is an open-source software tool funded on Open Collective that is designed for self-hosting, but also provides a free first-party instance. |
| GForge | The GForge Group, Inc. [6] | 2006 | Partial | Yes | Cloud version – free up to 5 users. On-premises version – free up to 5 users. | GForge is free for open source projects. |
| GitHub | GitHub, Inc. (A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation) | 2008-04 | No | No | Unknown | Denies service to Crimea, North Korea, Sudan, Syria [7] |
| GitLab | GitLab Inc. | 2011-09 [8] | Partial [9] | Yes [10] | GitLab FOSS – free software GitLab Enterprise Edition (EE) – proprietary | Denies service to Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria [11] |
| GNU Savannah | Free Software Foundation | 2001-01 | Yes | Yes | Savane | For use by projects with GPL compatible licenses, subject to staff approval. Code access review. [12] |
| Helix TeamHub | Perforce Software | 1995 | No | No | Cloud version – free up to 5 users. On-premises version requires a license. | Free cloud version has no limits on projects within 5gb storage limit. On-premises version has DevOps pipeline technology and free replicas. |
| Launchpad | Canonical | 2004 | Yes | No | Launchpad | Supports Bazaar and Git for version-controlled repository hosting. [13] [14] |
| OSDN | OSDN K.K. | 2002–04 | Unknown | Yes | Unknown | For open-source projects only. [15] Ad-supported. |
| Ourproject.org | Comunes Collective | 2002 | Yes | Yes | FusionForge | For free software, free culture and free content projects. |
| OW2 | OW2 | 2008 | No | No | GitLab | Oriented on middleware technology. |
| Phabricator | Phacility, Inc. | 2010 | Yes | Yes | Phabricator | End of life. [16] |
| SEUL | Unknown | 1997-05 | Unknown | No | Unknown | |
| SourceForge | Slashdot Media | 1999-11 | Yes [17] [18] | Yes | Apache Allura | For use by open-source projects. [19] Ad-supported. Subject to American export restrictions, so denies service to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria. [20] |
| Name | Manager | Established | Server side: all free software | Client side: all-free JS code | Developed or used CDE | Notes |
| Name | Code review | Bug tracking | Web hosting | Wiki | Translation system | Shell server | Mailing list | Forum | Personal repository | Private repository | Announce | Build system | Team | Release binaries | Self-hosting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assembla | Yes [21] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes [22] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | No |
| Azure DevOps Services | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Commercially (Azure DevOps Server) |
| Bitbucket | Yes [23] | Yes [lower-alpha 1] | Yes [24] | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes [lower-alpha 2] | No | Yes [25] | Yes | No [26] | Commercially (Bitbucket Server formerly Stash) [lower-alpha 3] |
| Buddy | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [lower-alpha 4] | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| CloudForge | Unknown | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | No |
| GForge | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Gitea | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Yes [27] | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| GitHub | Yes [28] | Yes [29] [lower-alpha 5] | Yes [30] | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [31] | Yes | Yes | Commercially (GitHub Enterprise) |
| GitLab | Yes [32] | Yes | Yes [33] | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [34] | Yes | Yes [35] | Yes [lower-alpha 6] |
| GNU Savannah | Yes [36] | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No [37] | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Unknown | Yes |
| Helix TeamHub | Yes [38] | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes, with hooks. Jenkins, TeamCity, etc. | No | Yes | Yes |
| Kallithea | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Unknown | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Launchpad | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes [lower-alpha 7] | Yes | Yes [lower-alpha 8] | Yes | Unknown | Yes |
| OSDN | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Ourproject.org | Unknown | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Unknown | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Yes |
| Phabricator | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Yes | Unknown | Yes | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Yes |
| RhodeCode | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Unknown | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SourceForge | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [lower-alpha 9] | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Name | Code review | Bug tracking | Web hosting | Wiki | Translation system | Shell server | Mailing list | Forum | Personal repository | Private repository | Announce | Build system | Team | Release binaries | Self-hosting |
| Name | CVS | Git | Hg | SVN | BZR | TFVC | Arch | Perforce | Fossil |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assembla | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No |
| Azure DevOps Services | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Bitbucket | No | Yes | Until Feb 2020 [lower-alpha 3] | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Buddy | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| CloudForge | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| GForge | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Gitea | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| GitHub | No | Yes | No | Partial, until Jan 2024 [39] [40] | No | No | No | No | No |
| GitLab | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| GNU Savannah | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [41] | No | Yes | No | No |
| Kallithea | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Launchpad | Import only | Yes [14] [42] | Import only [43] | Import only | Yes | No | No | No | Unknown |
| OSDN | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Unknown | Unknown |
| Ourproject.org | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Unknown | Unknown |
| OW2 | Dropped [44] | Yes | No | Dropped [44] | No | No | No | No | No |
| Helix TeamHub | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No |
| Phabricator | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| RhodeCode | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| SEUL.org | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Unknown | Unknown |
| SourceForge | Dropped [45] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Dropped [46] | No | No | Unknown | No [47] |
| Name | CVS | Git | Hg | SVN | BZR | TFVC | Arch | Perforce | Fossil |
| Name | Users | Projects |
|---|---|---|
| Assembla | Unknown | 526,581+ [48] |
| Bitbucket | 5,000,000 [49] | Unknown |
| Buddy | Unknown | Unknown |
| CloudForge | Unknown | Unknown |
| Gitea | Unknown | Unknown |
| GitHub | 94,000,000 [50] | 330,000,000 [50] |
| GitLab | 31,190,000 [51] | 546,000 [52] [lower-alpha 10] |
| GNU Savannah | 93,346 [53] | 3,848 [53] |
| Launchpad | 3,965,288 [54] | 40,881 [55] |
| OSDN | 54,826 [56] | 6,294 [56] |
| Ourproject.org | 6,353 [57] | 1,846 [57] |
| OW2 | Unknown | Unknown |
| SEUL | Unknown | Unknown |
| SourceForge | 3,700,000 [58] | 500,000 [58] |
| Name | Users | Projects |
Discontinued: CodePlex, Gna!, Google Code.
The following are open-source software hosting facilities that only serve a specific narrowly focused community or technology.
| Name | Ad-free | CVS | Git | SVN | Arch | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drupal | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Only for Drupal related projects. |
| freedesktop.org | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Only for interoperability and shared base technology for free software desktop environments on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems, including the X Window System (X11) and cairo (graphics). |
| mozdev.org | Yes | Yes | Unknown | No | No | Only for Mozilla-related projects. Defunct as of July 2020. |
| Name | Ad-free | CVS | Git | SVN | Arch | Notes |
Git is a distributed version control system that tracks changes in any set of computer files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers who are collaboratively developing source code during software development. Its goals include speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows.
Mantis Bug Tracker is a free and open source, web-based bug tracking system. The most common use of MantisBT is to track software defects. However, MantisBT is often configured by users to serve as a more generic issue tracking system and project management tool.
GForge is a commercial service originally based on the Alexandria software behind SourceForge, a web-based project management and collaboration system which was licensed under the GPL. Open source versions of the GForge code were released from 2002 to 2009, at which point the company behind GForge focused on their proprietary service offering which provides project hosting, version control, code reviews, ticketing, release management, continuous integration and messaging. The FusionForge project emerged in 2009 to pull together open-source development efforts from the variety of software forks which had sprung up.
OpenEMR is a medical practice management software which also supports Electronic Medical Records (EMR). It is ONC Complete Ambulatory EHR certified and features fully integrated electronic medical records, practice management for a medical practice, scheduling, and electronic billing.
Mercurial is a distributed revision control tool for software developers. It is supported on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and other Unix-like systems, such as FreeBSD and macOS.
In FOSS development communities, a forge is a web-based collaborative software platform for both developing and sharing computer applications.
GitHub, Inc. is a developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage and share their code. It uses Git software, providing the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous integration, and wikis for every project. Headquartered in California, it has been a subsidiary of Microsoft since 2018.
Bitbucket is a Git-based source code repository hosting service owned by Atlassian. Bitbucket offers both commercial plans and free accounts with an unlimited number of private repositories.
Assembla is a web-based version control and source code management software as a service provider for enterprises. It was founded in 2005 and acquired by San Antonio Venture Equity firm Scaleworks in 2016. It offers Git, Perforce Helix Core and Apache Subversion repository management, integrations with other enterprise software such as Trello, Slack and JIRA as well as the Cornerstone Subversion client for macOS. Assembla also offers integrations with customer's managed private clouds.
OSDN is a web-based collaborative development environment for open-source software projects. It provides source code repositories and web hosting services. With features similar to SourceForge, it acts as a centralized location for open-source software developers.
Gitorious was a free and open source web application for hosting collaborative free and open-source software development projects using Git revision control. Although it was freely available to be downloaded and installed, it was written primarily as the basis for the Gitorious shared web hosting service at gitorious.org, until it was acquired by GitLab in 2015.
In version control systems, a repository is a data structure that stores metadata for a set of files or directory structure. Depending on whether the version control system in use is distributed, like Git or Mercurial, or centralized, like Subversion, CVS, or Perforce, the whole set of information in the repository may be duplicated on every user's system or may be maintained on a single server. Some of the metadata that a repository contains includes, among other things, a historical record of changes in the repository, a set of commit objects, and a set of references to commit objects, called heads.
Travis CI is a hosted continuous integration service used to build and test software projects hosted on GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab, Perforce, Apache Subversion and Assembla.
GitLab Inc. is an open-core company that operates GitLab, a DevOps software package that can develop, secure, and operate software. The open-source software project was created by Ukrainian developer Dmytro Zaporozhets and Dutch developer Sytse Sijbrandij. In 2018, GitLab Inc. was considered to be the first partly-Ukrainian unicorn.
Gitter is an open-source instant messaging and chat room system for developers and users of GitLab and GitHub repositories. Gitter is provided as software-as-a-service, with a free option providing all basic features and the ability to create a single private chat room, and paid subscription options for individuals and organisations, which allows them to create arbitrary numbers of private chat rooms.
AppVeyor is a hosted, distributed continuous integration service used to build and test projects hosted on GitHub and other source code hosting services on a Microsoft Windows virtual machine, as well as Ubuntu Linux virtual machines. AppVeyor is a privately-held Canadian corporation founded in 2011.
Gitea is a forge software package for hosting software development version control using Git as well as other collaborative features like bug tracking, code review, continuous integration, kanban boards, tickets, and wikis. It supports self-hosting but also provides a free public first-party instance. It is a fork of Gogs and is written in Go. Gitea can be hosted on all platforms supported by Go including Linux, macOS, and Windows. The project is funded on Open Collective.
Magit is an interface to the Git version control system (a Git Client), implemented as a GNU Emacs package written in Elisp. It is made available through the MELPA package repository, on which it is the most-downloaded non-library package, with over 3.7 million downloads as of February 2023.
Codeberg e.V. is a nonprofit organization that provides online resources for software development and collaboration.
The review we do can be lengthy and difficult for both the submitter and the reviewer. Be sure to follow these steps; if your project doesn't comply with our requirements, we will ask you to make changes to your project or register again. This ensures a level of quality for projects hosted at Savannah, and even more important, raises awareness of these legal and philosophical issues related to free software.
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)564k January 2016
Years, where available, indicate the date of first stable release. Systems with names in italics are no longer maintained or have planned end-of-life dates. | ||||||
| Local only |
|  | ||||
| Client–server |
| |||||
| Distributed |
| |||||
| Concepts | ||||||