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Alex Spinov
Alex Spinov

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Gitea Has a Free Self-Hosted Git Platform — Like GitHub but on Your Own Server

#gitea #git #selfhosted #free

A startup CTO told me they were paying $21/user/month for GitHub Enterprise because their compliance team required self-hosted git. That's $2,520/year for a 10-person team.

I showed them Gitea. Same features — repos, PRs, CI/CD, packages — running on a $10 VPS. They switched in a weekend.

What You Get Free

MIT licensed. Self-host with no user limits:

  • Git hosting — repositories, branches, tags, LFS
  • Pull requests — reviews, comments, merge options, draft PRs
  • Issues — labels, milestones, projects, templates
  • CI/CD — Gitea Actions (GitHub Actions compatible!)
  • Package registry — npm, PyPI, Docker, Maven, NuGet, and more
  • Wiki — per-repository documentation
  • Organizations — teams, permissions, visibility controls
  • OAuth2 — provider and consumer
  • Webhooks — integrate with any service
  • Migration — import from GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket in one click
  • Lightweight — runs on 512MB RAM, Raspberry Pi compatible

Quick Start 

# Docker
docker run -d -p 3000:3000 -p 222:22 \
  -v gitea_data:/data \
  gitea/gitea:latest

# Or single binary
wget https://dl.gitea.com/gitea/latest/gitea-linux-amd64
chmod +x gitea-linux-amd64
./gitea-linux-amd64 web
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Open http://localhost:3000, create admin account, start pushing code.

Killer Feature: Gitea Actions 

# .gitea/workflows/ci.yml
name: CI
on: [push]
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
      - run: npm ci && npm test
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Yes, that's GitHub Actions YAML. Gitea Actions is compatible with GitHub Actions. Most existing workflows work without modification.

What You Can Build

1. Private GitHub — full git platform for your company. No per-user fees.
2. Compliance-ready git — data stays on your infrastructure. SOC2, HIPAA, GDPR.
3. Personal code vault — backup all your repos to your own server.
4. CI/CD platform — Gitea Actions replaces GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI.
5. Package registry — host private npm/Docker/PyPI packages. No Artifactory needed.

Gitea vs GitLab Self-Hosted

GitLab CE: 4GB+ RAM minimum. Complex setup. Feature-rich but heavy.
Gitea: 512MB RAM. Single binary. Starts in 2 seconds. 90% of the features at 10% of the resources.

Need git infrastructure help? Email spinov001@gmail.com

More free tiers: 57+ Free APIs Every Developer Should Bookmark

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