GitHub is a popular hosting service for programming projects. In particular, it offers a free, unlimited code database. Will this service be just as popular after Microsoft buys it? Without waiting for this announcement, developers have already migrated to alternatives.
Microsoft has officially announced the purchase of GitHub for $7.5 billion. A sum worthy of the reputation of this service, created in 2008. It has attracted nearly 27 million developers working on some 80 million projects. In addition to developers' projects, the platform also includes repositories from Google, Facebook and Microsoft.
This acquisition could encourage professionals to use other solutions. We present five of them.
#1 - SourceForge
SourceForge predates GitHub in popularity. Many GNU/Linux projects and distributions make packages or ISOs available via SourceForge. It hosts over 324,000 projects and has more than 3.4 million registered users, although not all of them are active.
This platform enables developers to create open source projects by providing all the necessary tools. The comprehensive offering includes project wikis, metrics and analytics, access to a MySQL database and unique sub-domain URLs.
After Microsoft's announcement, less seasoned professionals will certainly appreciate the fact that SourceForge provides tools that make it easy to import entire GitHub repositories or selected repositories into existing projects.
2# - GitLab
Introduced in November 2011, this alternative is very similar to GitHub in terms of usability (written in Ruby on Rails) and feel. This is perhaps one of the reasons why Gnome (GNU/Linux desktop) and GIMP (photo editing software presented as an alternative to Photoshop) recently migrated to GitLab. And they're not the only ones: this platform has reportedly seen a 10-fold increase in project creation since the announcement in early May of a partnership between Microsoft and GitHub to facilitate the use of Azure DevOps services.
More than 100,000 companies and over 2,000 professionals currently use this solution.
This open source software can be installed on your own server. The user interface is clean and intuitive. Each view is designed to avoid filling the screen with unnecessary information. The service includes an activity log, code reviews, issue tracking, wikis and continuous integration. GitLab's continuous integration capabilities automate testing and code delivery, reducing the experimental phase.
#3 - Bitbucket
Launched in May 2009, Bitbucket represents an attractive solution for professional teams. Nearly five million developers and one million teams have chosen this solution. This hosting site (free or subscription-based, with the highest rate at 150 euros) lets you host and manage your Git and Mercurial repositories, view source validations and modify code. You can manage and share your Git repositories to develop and transfer software.
Bitbucket provides a complete environment for development management, including a wiki, a powerful issue-tracking tool and easy collaboration with other collaborators or developers.
#4 - Beanstalk
Beanstalk is managed by Wildbit, a publisher founded in 1999 in Philadelphia. This solution lets you code, review and deploy directly from your browser. So you can work from any device, anywhere. Git and SVN are supported. Beanstalk integrates with online messaging programs and email to help your team stay involved in all code decisions and updates. Review includes questions and discussions. Analyses with delivery statistics are integrated. Beanstalk also focuses on security, with full base-level encryption, two-factor authentication and rigorous password management.
#5 - GNU Savannah
It's free, open source software from the Free Software Foundation. It offers CVS, GNU arch, Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, a mailing list, web hosting and bug tracking. However, this service is not intended for new users. It takes a little time to set up and master all the workings...
So there are plenty of alternatives to GitHub. These include pele mele Gitbucket, Gogs and Gitea. But many developers didn't wait for this announcement to leave GitHub. In their eyes, it's a centralized service run by a U.S.-registered company (like Beanstalk, among others...) and therefore subject to the Patriot Act.
Another pitfall: by becoming a leading platform for developers, it has become a target for hackers. It was hit by Ddos attacks in 2015. That same year, outages resulted in 5% of repositories being unavailable.
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