Moving from GitHub to Codeberg, for lazy people

I don't dislike Codeberg inherently, but it's not a "true" GitHub replacement. It can handle a good chunk of GitHub repositories (namely those for well established FOSS projects looking to have everything a proper capital P project has), but if you're just looking for a generic place to put your code projects that aren't necessarily intended for public release and support (ie. random automation scripts, scraps of concepts that never really got off the ground, things not super cleaned up), they're not really for that - private repositories are discouraged according to their FAQ and are very limited (up to 100mb).

They also don't want to host your homepage, so if GitHub Pages is why you used GitHub, they are not a replacement.

Unfortunately I don't think there's really an answer to that conundrum that doesn't involve just spinning up your own git server and accepting all the operational overhead that comes with it. At least Forgejo (software behind Codeberg) is FOSS, so you can do that and it should cover most of what you need (and while you're in the realm of having a server, a Pages-esque replacement is trivial since you're configuring a webserver anyway.) Maybe Gitlab.com, although I am admittedly unfamiliar with how Gitlab's "main" instance has changed over the years wrt features.

Here's their FAQ on the matter, it's worth a read: https://docs.codeberg.org/getting-started/faq/

The truth is that I publish OSS projects on GitHub because that's where the community is, and the issues/pull requests/discussions are a bonus.

If I just want to host my code, I can self host or use an SSH/SFTP server as a git remote, and that's usually what I do.

I've been using a self-hosted forgejo (which Codeberg uses and maintains) instance for all of my non-work projects and it's been great. I don't miss GitHub at all. I also keep it accessible only from Tailscale so that AI crawlers and such can speedily make their way into the sun.

I think evaluating alternatives to GitHub is going to become increasingly important over the coming years. At the same time, I think these kinds of migrations discount how much GitHub has changed the table stakes/raised the bar for what makes a valuable source forge: it's simply no longer reasonable to BYO CI or accept one that can't natively build for a common set of end-user architectures.

This on its own makes me pretty bearish on community-driven attempts to oust GitHub, even if ideologically I'm aligned with them: the real cost (both financial and in terms of complexity) of user expectations around source forges in 2026 is immense.

GitHub gives you a lot for "free". In exchange they'll have no problem harvesting your data, and it would really surprise me if they aren't training on private repos too. I guess you can opt out and if they're opt out doesn't work oh well.

On the other hand Codeberg doesn't let you create private repositories at all. So Copilot could still legally scrape your open source Codeberg repos.

I don't see much of a point for most people. https://docs.codeberg.org/getting-started/faq/ >If you need private repositories for commercial projects (e.g. because you represent a company or are a developer that needs a space to host private freelance projects for your clients), we would highly recommend that you take a look at Forgejo. Forgejo is the Git hosting software that Codeberg runs. It is free software and relatively easy to self-host. Codeberg does not offer private hosting services.

I just migrated our entire company off of github to gitlab self-hosted. So far so good. It's entirely behind tailscale so we don't have any SSO tax from gitlab and all of our CI runners are on EKS + an on-prem cluster with GPUs. If anyone needs help or motivation accomplishing the same, just reach out!

Lazy has nothing to do with it, codeberg simply doesn't work.

Most of my friends who use codeberg are staunch cloudflare-opponents, but cloudflare is what keeps Gitlab alive. Fact of life is that they're being attacked non-stop, and need some sort of DDoS filter.

Codeberg has that anubis thing now I guess? But they still have downtime, and the worst thing ever for me as a developer is having the urge to code and not being able to access my remote. That is what murders the impression of a product like codeberg.

Sorry, just being frank. I want all competitors to large monopolies to succeed, but I also want to be able to do my job/passion.

>The by far nastiest part is CI. GitHub has done an excellent job luring people in with free macOS runners and infinite capacity for public repos.

This was my biggest blocker as well, as there weren't any managed CIs that supported Codeberg until recently.

NixCI[0] recently added support for Codeberg, and I've had a great experience with it. The catch is that you have to write your CI in Nix, though with LLMs, this is actually pretty easy. Most of my CI jobs are just bash scripts with some Nix wiring on top.[1] It also means you can reproduce all your CI jobs locally without changing any code.

[0] https://nix-ci.com

[1] https://codeberg.org/mtlynch/little-moments/src/commit/d9856... - for example

I've been mostly off the GitHub train since the MS acquisition, and think any alternative is a good alternative. Codeberg is great.

I've also been very happy with sourcehut for most of my personal projects for some time. The email patch submission workflow is a tad bit unfamiliar for most, but IMO in today's era raising that barrier to entry is mostly a good thing for OSS projects.

I also strongly prefer a simple CI environment (where you just run commands), which encourages you to actually be able to run your CI commands locally.

Why? I want to understand why? Out of principle? I think some services just end up becoming foundational and we need to move on to other things for other things e.g if we're going to replace GitHub it's because we're creating new habits. Not because we're replacing like for like. That never works. What is a new code hosting platform offering. You know what, pair it with some app dev and great, now you've got something. But just hosting elsewhere it's got to be a major step change the way GitHub was from sourceforge and self hosting. Inherently the social aspects drove that and the power of git. Personally I think you have to intertwine the code hosting with app development using agents like a Google doc. Commits everytime there is a change. Every prompt creates a commit. I don't know. We don't need to reinvent the wheel for nothing.

Instead of "moving", let's at least have some mirrors up. Mirror all your repos to CB, make a FOSS tool to do this automagically for you. Let users be able to just click a button and boom, mirror.

The goal is to get at least a % available on CB, then we can think about where the community is

Repo hosting is the kind of thing that ought to be distributed/federated.

The underlying protocol (git) already has the cryptographic primitives that decouples trust in the commit tree (GPG or SSH signing) with trust in the storage service (i.e. github/codeberg/whatever).

All you need to house centrally is some SSH and/or gpg key server and some means of managing namespaces which would benefit from federation as well.

You'd get the benefits of de-centralisation - no over-reliance on actors like MS or cloudflare. I suppose if enough people fan out to gitlab, bitbucket, self hosting, codeberg, you end up with something that organically approximates a formally decentralised git repo system.

Is there a "Moving open source search from GitHub to XYZ, for lazy people"? When I'm looking for solutions to problems that open source might be able to solve, I find the fracturing of code hosting platforms an annoyance.

Might be more difficult for people with private repos, as I recall Codeberg doesn't like private repos on their platform.

What I'd like to see is a lazy person's HOWTO for the last paragraph:

> You could tell Codeberg to push new commits to GitHub, but this allows users to still file PRs and comment on issues and commits 2. Some folks have dealt with this by disabling issues on the GitHub repo, but that is a really destructive action as it will 404 all issues, and pull requests cannot be disabled. Some repos like libvirt/libvirt have written a GitHub Action that automatically closes all pull requests.

I'm self-hosting Forgejo on my own home server. It's super easy to do via Docker or as a single binary executable. I even have CI/CD runners on it, which was also very easy to set up. Definitely recommend for those who might not want to rely on someone else, be it Codeberg or not, but still get the same quality as Codeberg (as they literally run Forgejo themselves).

Everything runs on servers that we control. We will not sell your data.

Hosted in Europe, we welcome the world.

```````

so it's you control, make money vs they control make money. what is the difference here , except some eu version of maga movement here?

Oh, I didn't know github had free macOS CI runners. Maybe that would solve my dreadful upcoming issue that I'd have to update my mac to a version with glass to be able to build for the app store.

> The by far nastiest part is CI. GitHub has done an excellent job luring people in with free macOS runners and infinite capacity for public repos

Yup and this is where I pass on anything other than GitHub.

I love the simple design of the page. This is a random observations, but I noticed the author has an interesting "likes" button that is served from an API on https://dddddddddzzzz.org, a curious and interesting looking domain. I'll have to go dig around his blog to see if he's written about this.

tangled.org is another interesting take that's open source and built on ATProto (which I have mixed feelings about).

Also radicle.xyz

> If you absolutely need macOS runners I’d recommend sticking with GitHub Actions on the GitHub repository...

This is the only reason I haven’t migrated yet (I keep a mirror[1]).

1 - https://codeberg.org/willtobyte/carimbo

I am really really amazed at how many people discount this alternative because it does not work but do not realize that they are being slaves to Microsoft by using Github. Honestly, I do not get it.

Codeberg is not a 1-1 replacement for github/gitlab but for many people it is a better option.

I really wish there was a way to support with them a smaller amount then €24. I dont use codeberg myself but I really want to support them.

I have enjoyed using Forgejo over GitHub for local work. The features that GitHub has that plain Git does not includes a nice web renderer of markdown and code, issues and pull requests with comments, and project kanban boards. It's nice to have an alternative for local usage if GitHub ever goes down or just for private projects. Especially nice with agentic workflows, because agents can port issues, PRs, etc. back and forth between GitHub and Forgejo.

Really, they day I finally tire of github, I will just move to gitlab. git hosting is not something I want to wast my time yak shaving.

Haven’t heard of Codeberg. What are the top reasons to switch from GitHub?

I just have to say that I wrote my on hosting git service and eat my own stuff at gitbusiness.com

Having options is really important bcs relying heavily on one thing is not something that goes always well

Does any service offer hosted Forgejo Actions Runners? Or Forgejo compatible CI?

I want to pay for CI on my Codeberg projects, but I've been struggling to find something where I can just pay by the minute. I have projects that benefit from large CI runners but my usage is low enough that it makes no sense to host my own.

The concerning part is commercial. That is why Cloudflare Pages/workers is a better option than GitHub pages or Vercel Pages.

never had a problem with github, i must be using it during the 90% of the time that it works

Codeberg vs selfhosted Gitlab. What do you think?

even better, selfhost your own gitea instance

> The by far nastiest part is CI.

But that's the most important part. A repository without CI is basically dead.

The biggest challenge of this era is automated verification, and proper CI infrastructure is essential.

GitHub feels like what Hudson/Jenkins was some decades ago. Horrible, but the only one that did what it did.

I run probably hundreds of dollars of CI on GitHub per month. Except I don't pay a cent for it (all open source public repos). I can't just let that go, those workers do real work.

The problem is paas platforms and other platforms don't really support codeberg or any other alternatives.

Can I link a codeberg repo to Railway for example?

I wish they had a paid plan for private repositories that aren't FOSS.

I'm still more comfortable keeping my code in America.

Codeberg is great, but I really miss Octobox.

I can't imagine using GitHub without Octobox; it's just impossible to keep track of all the notifications by email.

Unfortunately, Octobox doesn't support GitHub, so I've no idea how to follow projects, even the ones I really want to contribute to.

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codeberg.org still requires "javascript" aka one of the massive whatng cartel c++ written web engines. Do prefer sourcehut or others which are not web apps, in other words are web sites (classic web, or noscript/basic html for critical core functions at least, like issue tracking).

microsoft carefully broke classic web support overtime, THX AGAIN MICROSOFT, WE LOVE YOU!

This was kind of predictable [0] and even self-hosting your own solution was done way before GitHub existed and now has better uptime than them.

Now they are turning GitHub into a canteen for AI agents and their AI chatbots (Copilot, Tay.ai and Zoe) to feed them on your code if you don't opt out.

> The by far nastiest part is CI. GitHub has done an excellent job luring people in with free macOS runners and infinite capacity for public repos

Hosting was never free and if you do not want Codeberg to go the way of GitHub, you need to pay for it.

Otherwise expect GitHub downtime to hit every week or so.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22867803

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