Alternatives to Git & GitHub - bounswe/bounswe2025group2 GitHub Wiki

We explained Git & GitHub in their respective pages. I'll explain their alternatives in this page.

Git-based GitHub Alternatives

GitLab

Unlike GitHub, GitLab allows for self-hosting on top of cloud hosting. Which makes it a better fit for enterprises and security-focused teams. But it doesn't have the wide community that GitHub has. Because it utilizes self-hosting, it relies on heavier resources.

Bitbucket

Developed by Atlassian, used by teams that rely on their tools like Jira. It supported both Git and Mercurial until 2020; now it only uses Git as the version control system. Until February of 2024, they supported Bitbucket servers, but as of now they no longer do. Now Bitbucket only supports cloud hosting like GitHub does. Their current biggest argument is Jira, which is better suited for agile development.

Gogs

Gogs is a self-hosting version control management system. It's programmed in Go. Which makes it easier to run and install on various platforms. It has a minimal resource usage and low hardware requirement. This makes it a great fit for personal projects and small teams. It doesn't have built-in CI/CD support but encourages external integrations. But it has a slow development and limited features. Yet, its minimality makes it a reasonable choice for some teams.

Gitea

Gitea is a fork of Gogs. Like Gogs, it focuses on self-hosting with minimal resource usage. It's mainly used by smaller teams. Its development is faster and has more features compared to Gogs. Its obvious advantages render Gitea the spiritual successor of Gogs.

SourceForge

Similar to what Gogs is to Gitea, SourceForge can be considered the spiritual predecessor to GitHub. It's one of the oldest code hosting platforms. It supports Git, SVN, and Mercurial. Before GitHub claimed the throne, SourceForge was the open-source platform. While it's not nearly as big as it once was, its built-in distribution tools and multi-VCS support still come in handy. Today, it is generally used in niche and legacy projects.

Non-Git Alternatives

Apache Subversion (SVN)

Apache Subversion (SVN) has its own version control system. Its biggest difference from Git is that it's central and not distributed. In Git, every user has a copy of the repository, which they also commit locally, and then push. SVN is much more strict. It has a single central repository where the user needs to have online access to commit any change. This strict structure allows for much safer history integrity, which enterprises prioritized then. But it's also the reason they became the dinosaurs and the Git was the meteor. Git is much more flexible, handles merge conflicts way better, is faster, and has a much bigger community now. Nowadays, SVN is almost exclusively used on legacy projects.

Fossil SCM

Fossil SCM is basically Git and GitHub combined into one singular executable. Like Git, it is a distributed version control system. Like GitHub, it has built-in project management tools like issues, wiki, and web interface. Fossil is designed by the creator of SQLite—Richard Hipp—with the aim of an all-in-one easy-to-use version control system. But it has a much smaller community than Git & GitHub. It's mostly used by smaller teams.

Perforce Helix Core

Like SVN, Helix Core is also a central version control system. It has very distinct field-specific advantages that Git simply does not have. It dominates the AAA gaming industry. Where Git excels at code, Helix Core excels at massive binary assets like 3D models and high-resolution textures. Git—even Git LFS—compares much slower in these files, and it scales histories for them even worse. Unlike Git, Helix Core also has file locking features where it prohibits two users from working on the same file, which is critical for game studios. Helix Core also has better granular control over Git. In Git, the users that have access to the repository can change any and every part of the project. Which can lead to accidental changes in critical segments of the project. In Helix Core, teams have only partial access to the repository. They can read the entire project but write only the parts they have access to. For example, the art team only has access to visual assets, while the programmers only have access to the game logic files. Its pricing can be expensive for indie studios. That's why alternatives like Git are still being used in the gaming industry. But Helix Core is the obvious choice for the majority of the AAA studios.