Git Hosting
2 open source tools compared. Sorted by stars. Scroll down for our analysis.
By Erik Loyd, SaaS CEO and former COO/CFO of an AWS Premier Partner.
| Tool | Stars | Velocity | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
 Gitea Self-hosted Git service | 57.3k | +122/wk | 91 |
 Forgejo Beyond coding. We forge. Self-hosted lightweight software forge. | 0 | - | 35 |
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Our Analysis
Gitea is the lightest full-featured Git forge you can self-host. Single Go binary, runs on minimal hardware, supports repositories, issues, pull requests, code review, wikis, packages, and a container registry. MIT-licensed, fully free. Deployment is straightforward: download the binary or use Docker, point it at a database, and you are running. SQLite works for small teams; Postgres for anything serious. It can run on a 512MB VPS. Gitea Actions gives you GitHub Actions-compatible CI/CD built in, so you can migrate workflows without rewriting them. Teams moving off GitHub or GitLab for cost or data sovereignty reasons should look at Gitea first. It covers what most dev teams actually need from a Git host. GitLab self-hosted covers more but costs significantly more in resources and maintenance overhead. The catch: Gitea is community-maintained. Enterprise features like SAML SSO exist but are less polished than GitLab's. If compliance-grade auth and audit tooling are required, GitLab or a managed GitHub plan is the safer choice.
Forgejo is a self-hosted Git platform forked from Gitea in 2022 after a governance dispute over the parent project moving to a private company. The fork is run by Codeberg eV, a nonprofit, with a community-controlled governance model. GPLv3 from version 9.0 forward, MIT before that. Feature-wise, it is what Gitea is: repos, issues, pull requests, wiki, releases, package registry (Docker, npm, Maven, container registry, more), and Forgejo Actions, which is a fork of Gitea Actions and accepts GitHub Actions workflow files directly. Single Go binary or Docker container. Runs comfortably on a Raspberry Pi and scales to teams of thousands. Solo developers and small teams: install via Docker Compose, point your DNS at it, done. Larger teams: Forgejo is the safer long-term pick over Gitea because of the governance model. If you are starting fresh in 2026, choose Forgejo first. The catch is mindshare. Gitea has more users, more community plugins, and is what most tutorials reference. Migrating between Gitea and Forgejo is straightforward (database-compatible up through specific versions), so this is not a one-way door. Also worth noting: the source lives on Codeberg, not GitHub. Star counts and issue activity look quiet on GitHub mirrors because the real project is elsewhere.